Kidding Season Has Been Wild This Year
Apr 30, 2019 0:57:55 GMT -5
mollymoo, susaq, and 2 more like this
Post by westxgrl13 on Apr 30, 2019 0:57:55 GMT -5
We currently are bottling FIVE Angora babies. One is six or so weeks old; the other four are two and five days old.
The oldest kid I found while the dogs and lamb and I were out walking. He had been attacked by some predator or varmint, but not killed. His head was all boogered up and covered in dried blood, and he was almost doing the "limberneck" thing where the head turns up and back toward the flank. That usually means death is minutes away. We brought him home and for several days, it was touch and go. We had to tube him for the first week and a half, because his sucking instinct was shot. Finally, though, with a lot of patience and tubing him three times a day, we got his mouth lined up like it needed to be, and the sucking reflex kicked in. Since then, it's been all good. He has healed up and isn't all wobbly on his pins like he was for the first couple of weeks.
Last week, my DD found a set of twins flat out on their sides and gasping, near death, as they were born when it was rainy/windy and momma couldn't get them dried off and warm and fed. We put them in the bathroom with the heater blowing to warm them up, then I had an "aha" moment and filled several gallon Ziploc bags with pretty toasty-warm water. We arranged the goats in cardboard boxes, and propped them up with the hot bags around them. It made a WORLD of difference in a short time, to get them up off their sides and resting like little goaties normally do! They are thriving. So one of each, a nannie and a billie.
The newer twins have a rather gruesome backstory: As DH was leaving the other day, he saw a nannie close to the road and knew something was wrong with it. When he got closer, he could see that her side was slashed open and her paunch was hanging outside her body. He grabbed his gun and shot her before she could run off somewhere and die a slow, painful, lingering death. He walked out to see if he could tell what had damaged her, and was pretty shocked to find that coyotes (based on the tooth markings and where they were around her jaws) had completely EATEN her udder. Gone. Just a bloody hole where it had been. Yeah, gag. As he was studying on her poor ravaged body, the part of her stomach that was still inside her gave a THUMP. He grabbed his pocket knife and hurriedly slashed her open further, and pulled out a kid still in the bag (a nannie kid). He thinks the nannie was probably lying down and going into labor when the coyotes attacked her. The kid took a breath after he opened the sac and wiped its nose clean. About a minute later, he realized there was ANOTHER kid in the nannie, so he pulled it out, as well (billie kid). He figured it had been in there too long without oxygen/blood supply, but lo and behold, when he tore open the bag, it was OK, too! So he called me on the cell, and told me to come a'runnin' with towels. By the time I got there, the babies were screeching like fishwives, a beautiful sound! I brought them home, and put them in the tub on an old blanket and ran the heater to dry them off. Within a couple of hours, they had their first bottles, defrosted and warmed-up Katy Kow colostrum that I had milked out and frozen when she calved. All five of these goats are just perfect! Talk about snatching them all from the very jaws of death.
It's been a heartbreaking year for kidding. We see little kids and then they're gone. Coyotes have been encroaching into our area the past several years; at first, we'd catch maybe one per year. Then a couple. Now they are eating us right out of the Angora goat business, seems like, even though this country and climate are perfect for goats. DH recently bought guard dogs and we are pinning our hopes on them, as far as salvaging some of the kid crop. Besides the coyotes that are decimating the numbers, the buzzards are wreaking their fair share of havoc, as well. Used to, when we just had the red-headed buzzards here in this part of the country, they were scavengers only, eating something after it was dead. But several years ago, a different kind of buzzard moved in, one with a bigger, black head and a more vicious look about it. These are more aggressive, and will kill the kids and/or nannies when the nannies are lying down giving birth. Or find the little kids sleeping and peck out their eyes, then peck on the rest of the body until they are dead. They are just dreadful. So harsh. Anyone who says nature is cute and cuddly is a flat-out LIAR. If the guard dogs work out, it will change the whole way we run goats and have since my granddaddy got the first ones back in the 1940's. Always before, the goats have run in the pastures wherever they wish--usually in smaller groups. With the dogs, we have the younger nannies in smaller traps, getting the goats and dogs used to one another. Even after we turn them out into the bigger pastures, they will have to stay bunched together so the dogs can guard them; no running alone or in small groups, because they won't be protected. Our country is a little bit of divide and a whole lot of canyon, so I'm not sure how the dogs are going to stick with the goats when they travel in the rough areas, but we'll find out. We have the dogs with the younger nannies; the bigger nannies have lost nearly every kid. We see bunches of 75-90, and there will be only one or two kids with them. Boo-hoo! We know that most of them have kidded already, but their kids have been eaten.
Government trappers and helicopters flying to hunt the coyotes/wild hogs/mountain lions/etc. can't even begin to keep up with the varmint explosion. Our neighbors around us all trap, as do we, but we are losing the battle. The country to the west of us a couple of hours has been totally overtaken by coyotes. Ranchers mostly don't even have livestock anymore. They can hardly even keep cattle alive.
So we take our bright spots where we can find them. My DD and I sat out in the yard this afternoon and laughed as the four teeny goats crawled all over us, bleating and slobbering and hoping it was time for the next bottle. I will try to post pictures of these cuties in a day or two. Katy Kow is nursing her own calf, a dogie calf, and a dogie lamb, plus providing milk for the five kid goats, so there isn't a whole lot left for US these days!
The oldest kid I found while the dogs and lamb and I were out walking. He had been attacked by some predator or varmint, but not killed. His head was all boogered up and covered in dried blood, and he was almost doing the "limberneck" thing where the head turns up and back toward the flank. That usually means death is minutes away. We brought him home and for several days, it was touch and go. We had to tube him for the first week and a half, because his sucking instinct was shot. Finally, though, with a lot of patience and tubing him three times a day, we got his mouth lined up like it needed to be, and the sucking reflex kicked in. Since then, it's been all good. He has healed up and isn't all wobbly on his pins like he was for the first couple of weeks.
Last week, my DD found a set of twins flat out on their sides and gasping, near death, as they were born when it was rainy/windy and momma couldn't get them dried off and warm and fed. We put them in the bathroom with the heater blowing to warm them up, then I had an "aha" moment and filled several gallon Ziploc bags with pretty toasty-warm water. We arranged the goats in cardboard boxes, and propped them up with the hot bags around them. It made a WORLD of difference in a short time, to get them up off their sides and resting like little goaties normally do! They are thriving. So one of each, a nannie and a billie.
The newer twins have a rather gruesome backstory: As DH was leaving the other day, he saw a nannie close to the road and knew something was wrong with it. When he got closer, he could see that her side was slashed open and her paunch was hanging outside her body. He grabbed his gun and shot her before she could run off somewhere and die a slow, painful, lingering death. He walked out to see if he could tell what had damaged her, and was pretty shocked to find that coyotes (based on the tooth markings and where they were around her jaws) had completely EATEN her udder. Gone. Just a bloody hole where it had been. Yeah, gag. As he was studying on her poor ravaged body, the part of her stomach that was still inside her gave a THUMP. He grabbed his pocket knife and hurriedly slashed her open further, and pulled out a kid still in the bag (a nannie kid). He thinks the nannie was probably lying down and going into labor when the coyotes attacked her. The kid took a breath after he opened the sac and wiped its nose clean. About a minute later, he realized there was ANOTHER kid in the nannie, so he pulled it out, as well (billie kid). He figured it had been in there too long without oxygen/blood supply, but lo and behold, when he tore open the bag, it was OK, too! So he called me on the cell, and told me to come a'runnin' with towels. By the time I got there, the babies were screeching like fishwives, a beautiful sound! I brought them home, and put them in the tub on an old blanket and ran the heater to dry them off. Within a couple of hours, they had their first bottles, defrosted and warmed-up Katy Kow colostrum that I had milked out and frozen when she calved. All five of these goats are just perfect! Talk about snatching them all from the very jaws of death.
It's been a heartbreaking year for kidding. We see little kids and then they're gone. Coyotes have been encroaching into our area the past several years; at first, we'd catch maybe one per year. Then a couple. Now they are eating us right out of the Angora goat business, seems like, even though this country and climate are perfect for goats. DH recently bought guard dogs and we are pinning our hopes on them, as far as salvaging some of the kid crop. Besides the coyotes that are decimating the numbers, the buzzards are wreaking their fair share of havoc, as well. Used to, when we just had the red-headed buzzards here in this part of the country, they were scavengers only, eating something after it was dead. But several years ago, a different kind of buzzard moved in, one with a bigger, black head and a more vicious look about it. These are more aggressive, and will kill the kids and/or nannies when the nannies are lying down giving birth. Or find the little kids sleeping and peck out their eyes, then peck on the rest of the body until they are dead. They are just dreadful. So harsh. Anyone who says nature is cute and cuddly is a flat-out LIAR. If the guard dogs work out, it will change the whole way we run goats and have since my granddaddy got the first ones back in the 1940's. Always before, the goats have run in the pastures wherever they wish--usually in smaller groups. With the dogs, we have the younger nannies in smaller traps, getting the goats and dogs used to one another. Even after we turn them out into the bigger pastures, they will have to stay bunched together so the dogs can guard them; no running alone or in small groups, because they won't be protected. Our country is a little bit of divide and a whole lot of canyon, so I'm not sure how the dogs are going to stick with the goats when they travel in the rough areas, but we'll find out. We have the dogs with the younger nannies; the bigger nannies have lost nearly every kid. We see bunches of 75-90, and there will be only one or two kids with them. Boo-hoo! We know that most of them have kidded already, but their kids have been eaten.
Government trappers and helicopters flying to hunt the coyotes/wild hogs/mountain lions/etc. can't even begin to keep up with the varmint explosion. Our neighbors around us all trap, as do we, but we are losing the battle. The country to the west of us a couple of hours has been totally overtaken by coyotes. Ranchers mostly don't even have livestock anymore. They can hardly even keep cattle alive.
So we take our bright spots where we can find them. My DD and I sat out in the yard this afternoon and laughed as the four teeny goats crawled all over us, bleating and slobbering and hoping it was time for the next bottle. I will try to post pictures of these cuties in a day or two. Katy Kow is nursing her own calf, a dogie calf, and a dogie lamb, plus providing milk for the five kid goats, so there isn't a whole lot left for US these days!