No, not that kind. Timmy and Annie finally got it right and Annie gave us a little buck and doe about two weeks ago. Sorry Anut Dru never got to see them. She always enjoyed seeing the new babies when we had them. Andy has standard ears like Annie and Abby has the little elf ears like Timmy.
The animals have been keeping me both busy and up at night this last week. Jack has gotten a nasty eye infection again. It isn’t as bad as the one he had a couple of years ago thankfully. I’ve been spraying his eye and putting salve around it to keep the drainage from causing a skin infection like he had last time. The infection had just started to form but I caught it early enough and that part is almost completely gone. His eye is still red and irritated but it too is getting better.
Bobie Jo never gained any weight after calving this year and started to go down hill. She continued to lose weight even though I was feeding her more and more. Last Thursday she only ate about half of her grain and Friday she didn’t eat anything. Definitely not like her. I started reading on the Internet and placed a call into the Vet. From my reading is sounded like Ketosis and when the Vet called me back he confirmed that her symptoms fit. I bought a jug of Propylene Glycol and a drench kit on the way home. 25 ml every six hours starting Friday night. She didn’t eat her grain Friday or Saturday but by Sunday she was starting to get her appetite back. This morning (Monday) she was back to her old self eating like a horse. Now maybe I can get some sleep. She is still not out of the woods yet but now that she is eating again and the calf is off her she should start gaining weight. Thankfully she never stopped eating hay or drinking. We tried to tube her Saturday to make sure she was staying hydrated but that wasn’t a successful process. I got the tube in a couple of times but wasn’t confident enough that I wasn’t in the lungs so we stopped and decided to just watch her to see if she was indeed still drinking. Thankfully she went over to the trough and stuck her head in. She didn’t drink as much as I would have liked but it was enough to keep me from sticking that tube back down her throat.
Weekend before last we were able to finish laying the grass on one side of the yard. I still have a lot of prep work before we can do the other side. It’s looking good so far especially with the flowerbeds Lisa put in this summer.
Timmy is doing much better. Most of the red angry, bloody tissue and swelling has gone away. He still has what appears to be bare bone showing but that is getting smaller and smaller. At least it looks like it to me. We are still rinsing his mouth twice a day with salt water and giving him a penicillin shot every morning. The doc also has us wiping the area with a fuzzy rag each time we rinse his mouth out. I guess its to remove any dead tissue. It all seams to be helping. Very slow process and at this rate it might be another month but it sure is better than the alternative. At first we were looking at major surgery or putting him down. While that looks less likely every day we are still not out of the woods until that bone is covered and the wound is completely healed. No pictures because we can’t hold him and take the picture and the last visit to the vet didn’t require he to be put under.
Ava is a huge hit everywhere she goes with her little head turns and squeaks. She is growing and getting more active each day. The other day when Lisa made her a bottle (syringe) and opened the cage, Ava scampered up one arm around her neck and down the other arm to get fed.
She also really likes being brushed after her bath.
Marcy, from Tennessee is coming down this weekend to pick up the two not so little red KuneKune cross boars we’ve been holding for her. I’ll be glad to see them move on. Not because they have been any trouble but I need to move some sows around and don’t want them close to the boars. It causes them all to go kind of crazy. I will still have one boar that needs to find a home even if it’s in the freezer. He is about a year and a half old registered AGH is anyone is interested.
Well, I took Timmy back to the vet last Saturday because I thought he had pulled out his stitches. Sure glad that I did. Our regular vet was back and he took one look at Timmie’s mouth and said that looks ugly. He pulled all the stitches out that the other vets had put in. Then wiped the blood and dead tissue away. Timmy has a bone infection in his left jaw bone. The doc changed his antibiotic and has us washing his wound with saltwater after every feeding. We went back on Tuesday after the 4th and we can already see some improvement in the tissue. We will go back in about two weeks unless something changes for the worse. Everyone is hoping that he continues to progress and all or part of the left jawbone doesn’t have to come out. Here are pictures from Tuesdays visit. The second one is of him trying to wake up from the drugs. He’s saying just let me sleep it off. I had to go to work and couldn’t take him home and leave him until he was awake so we poked and shook him until he could stand.
MONKEY!
Lisa always wanted a monkey and last weekend she drove to Miami to pick up Ava. She contacted several breeders but decided on Poggie’s Animal House in Miami. They have been outstanding to work with. She is only about 5 weeks old and still eating from a bottle, well, really its a syringe with a nipple on it. Lisa has just started introducing her to solid foods.
Here are some pictures and a short video.
The title should say discovering a new toy. Lisa was uploading from her phone and auto correct must have struck again. We’ll see about getting it changed.
One last thing. we had two unplanned litters of AGH/KuneKune piglets born this week. The second litter was born the day after the first. There were 5 and 9 in the litters but we are down to 4 and 7 with no losses in the last several days. They are solid black with the exception of one little male with a white front foot.
Poor Timmy
I got home from work last Tuesday to find Timmy sleeping soundly by the drive. He was so out that he looked dead and almost didn’t move when I stopped next to him. I noticed his mouth looked like it was open. When I called his name he sat up and still had his mouth open. It looked like he had something stuck in his mouth. I parked the truck and went back to him to check.
It was worse than I thought. Somehow he had torn the inside of his mouth away from his jawbone in the front and down one side. It was already infected and he had hay and other junk under his jaw.
I couldn’t hold him and clean out his mouth and Lisa was away on business. Thankfully mom was home so we walked next door and I held him while she cleaned all the hay out of his mouth and then we washed it out with water.
I put him in a large dog kennel with some water and we made a trip to the vet Wednesday morning. Dr Thomas was away and the vet filling in said I’ve never worked on a goat. I immediately got an uneasy feeling. Thankfully she didn’t hesitate to take a look and do some quick research on how to knock him out so she could work on him. She did an excellent job. She got him all stitched up and on antibiotics. I took him home with a lampshade around his neck so he wouldn’t mess with his stitches.
All was going well and the vet called Saturday to see how he was doing and I told her he was doing fine. I had just taken the lampshade off him Friday night. About 20 minutes (5 minutes after the vet closed) later I went out to check his water and found he had torn his stitches loose. So back to the vet he went this morning.
OOPS!
When I castrated the little boars I missed one. One day about 4 months ago I noticed one of the “castrated” little boars chasing the sows. I caught him and placed him with the other not fixed boars. I thought I caught him before he could breed with anyone. Not so lucky. This morning I found 5 little piglets. The boar was registered AGH (he is the one that now lives in NY) and the Sow is Patsy out 50/50 AGH/KuneKune sow.
Last week one of the little red boars that we are saving for Marcy got in with the sows so we may have more oopses in about 4 months. I hope not. He wasn’t chasing so I think he was after their food and not their affection.
I haven’t been doing a very good job keeping the page updated. Summer is a busy time for sure.
Two weeks ago we picked up a little Nigerian doe from my sister. It was an early birthday gift for Lisa. She is still a little skittish around me but will crawl right up into Lisa’s lap. She and the little buck (Timmy) we bought earlier will significantly downsize our goats over time.
I couldn’t resist. The last thing we really needed is more chickens but I found these Polish Crested chicks at the feed store and couldn’t leave without them. The top hats are hard to see in this picture taken a week ago. I’ll post new pictures soon. They look like they have little puff balls on their heads now. New Updated picture.
And lastly, Bobbie Jo finally gave us a little bull calf Saturday morning. It’s her first and she is worrying him to death. Or maybe it’s he who is worrying her. He is still wobbly on his feet but he is spunky and goes where he wants no matter how much she calls to him. It’s funny to watch them. She licks him so hard it almost pushes him over. Then he’ll take off as she follows behind softly calling to him.
Almost forgot, Sunday morning a hen showed up with 9 chicks. Now if she will just keep them close. We have had several hens with a few chicks one day and none the next. I don’t know what is getting them. The most recent was a game hen that had two chicks that were several weeks old and all feathered out. I almost think it was a hawk because there was no sign of any other birds being bothered. In the past when we had a vermin problem they would take larger birds too and we would find feathers if not partially eaten birds.
We moved three little boars Saturday. Two had gotten out and into the area whit the sows. I hope we don’t have oops piglets in about 4 months. I’m afraid we may have a few from a previous escape. During the move our adult boars got in the mix and one of the young ones thought he was going to match up with Hank and Willie. When it was all said and done he was on the run with a cut on his hind leg. Nothing serious, thankfully. He’ll limp around for a few days but should be fine as long as he understands his place in the pecking order. The smaller ones backed down and moved aside when the big boys walked by. They didn’t want any part of them.
I pray that everyone has a safe and enjoyable weekend but please take a moment to remember why we celebrate Memorial Day. Thousands of men and women have laid down their lives so that we can have the freedoms and comforts that living in The United States of America provides.
After years of talking about it we finally put in a new walkway and a flag pole just in time for Memorial Day. Have to have Old Glory flying.
I’m no fan of concrete but after weighing the cost of other materials, concrete was the only way to go. It looks nice and once we get the front yard re-sodded it will be even better.
I’m glad we waited for the flag pole because where we originally planned to put it was too close to a young maple tree. The limbs would be nearly into the pole by now. The only thing close now is a crapemyrtle tree that will be kept short and bushy. It is taller than I would like because I didn’t trim it this winter.
Here is a perfect example of why we are downsizing out goats. Calvin is climbing on the fence to get to the willow tree. In the process he has the fence pulled down. If I wouldn’t have ran him off and ran a strand of electric fence along the top he would have been going over in short order.
One last note just for a good laugh. When I went into our little barn where several hens had been setting on nests I found this guy keeping a couple of eggs warm. lol
Friday morning Lisa noticed that Winnie was not acting normal. She was drooling and wasn’t breathing right. She asked me to check on her and tell her what I thought. When I got to her she was acting more normal but her breathing still wasn’t right. She was taking breaths by moving her stomach rather than her chest. I said she needed to go to the vet.
Lisa said it was obvious Winnie was in pain when she was helped into the van but on the way she she got better. She worked her way to the front and laid her head on Lisa’s lap. When they got there Winnie jumped on the front seat and hopped out as if nothing was wrong. She walked into the vets office looking completely normal. Less than an hour later she was gone! The vet said one minute she was sitting up in the cage and the next she was gone. Died before he even had a chance to evaluate her.
When I spoke to him he really had no idea what could have taken her so quickly and we didn’t want to pay for an autopsy. I took her home and buried her in the pet cemetery next to her dad Shep.
We are so thankful that her puppies were all weaned and in their new homes.
RIP old girl you will be missed. I will miss seeing you carrying your bowl around as if you hadn’t been fed.
On a brighter note we were informed that Kim, Tony, and Jasmine were going to give Lisa a little Nigerian doeling for her birthday. They had 4 to choose from and we picked out a little black one with white markings. For some reason I failed to get a picture so it will come later on. She is only a few weeks old so she will be staying there for a while longer.
After all this time Dozier the rescued squirrel still remembered Lisa. There were several squirrels eating chicken feed and Lisa started calling to them and they all ran for the trees except one. He hung around and she gave him an ear of corn. He never got close enough to touch but he was just out of reach. I thought I had a picture of them but it didn’t take. I guess it was just a bad weekend for me and the camera.
We only have three puppies left here at the house. Teddy, the gray male we are keeping and the two females that are going to Tennessee in a couple of weeks. We do still have one gray male that is not spoken for. He is staying at the feed store. They have a lot of traffic and will probably be able to sell him faster than if I keep him here and advertise.
A week ago we added a young billy to out goats. Ih is a small goat and we are hoping to get some small kids when he breeds our does. After we get 3 or 4 kids Timmy will get wethered. We only want to get some younger goats since ours are getting old, not be over run with them again.
The first 3 days he cried and cried. So much so that he got horse and squeeky. The first night he was crying and then suddenly got quiet. I slipped over to see what he was doing. I found one of the girls (pyreneese) laying next to him.
The next day Patty our youngest mini horse took up with him when the other goats just ignored him.
It took several days for the older goats to warm up to him. A couple of the does would come over and check on him when he was crying but they just walk away. Some would but him if he tried to join them. So, for the first couple of days the dogs and Patty were his companions. Lisa also started giving him two bottles of fresh cows milk. He wasn’t eating much because he was so stressed out but he took the bottles. She has started weaning him back off the milk again since he is eating well and has taken up with the rest of the goats.
Well, I guess old age has finally arrived at the homestead. When I went to the barn this morning Remy was guarding a dead goat. One of our first goats Jody died last night. Everyone looked fine yesterday morning and I didn’t notice anything unusual last night so he wasn’t sick but 12 years is starting to get old for a goat I guess. Thankfully there were no signs of struggle or thrashing around. It appears he either went in his sleep or at least went quickly. He is going to be missed in the barnyard. He was one of the least troublesome of the bunch. He would let you rub his face especially around his eyes. He would appear to almost fall asleep standing there.
This is the only picture I could find of him. (center of the picture)
This leaves us with five. Two of our original 6 (Buffy, and Calvin) plus Jack, Bitsy, and Lizzy. Yes four of our original goats were named Buffy and Jody from “Family Affair” and Calvin and Hobbes from the comic. Buffy, Jody and Jack have been more pets than livestock and for a long time Jack acted and was treated more like one of the dogs than a goat. I expect the next year or so is going to be rough at times. Jody, Jack and Calvin along with Sadie our first Great Pyrenees who is 11 are nearing or exceeding their life expectancy.
We haven’t had a billy in several years but my sister does and so does Jim at the feed store so I guess it’s time for Bitsy, and Lizzy to have a boyfriend. Time to start replacing our expected losses. They are both several years younger than the others and shorter too. Hopefully the new generations won’t give me so much trouble riding over the fences.
