#goat keeping

[erydumaenhir]

Goatgate Day 6

Grandparents home. Talked to both individually about the situation. Grandma seems hopeful that me telling him that the goat is really in bad shape and is hurting will help him listen to the vet. Grandma literally told me he was using the goat’s pen as a compost bin (wtf he has others RIGHT THEre) and that ‘he was okay walking on his knees to the feed box’ and I was just ‘um no.’

Grandpa says he’s gonna call the vet. I was very pointed in telling him that he needed to listen to the vet if he said it was time. He promised me he would. I told him he could call me if he needed help on the weekends. 

I’ll talk to him about it again tomorrow, and the donkeys hooves. Tell him they need to be seen to. 

I’m iffy about the protein pail thing for the goat but it looks like it should be okay to give to the donkeys if he does have the goat put to sleep, as far as the minerals go. I’m more worried about them just eating it like nutjobs I guess. It’s (obviously) in a bucket and it’s a sort of solid so IDK how they’d eat it without eating the bucket but eh.

I think he’ll do right by the goat finally, even if it means letting the vet put him to sleep. I’ll call and check in with him about it around this time next week if he hasn’t called or emailed me first. 

[erydumaenhir]

Goatgate Day 5

Goat seems happy in the barn. He’s up and down curiously when I’m around. Hasn’t eaten all of his feed from yesterday, but I did give him more than usual. Dunno how much of his hay he’s eating ‘cause the bucket of hay is fairly full still but he could be eating his nest instead. He’s still pooping, at least. 

Maybe he’s iffy about eating the feed off the protein pail. IDK man. I’m trying not to pester him too much while I’m up there ‘cause I don’t wanna stress him out more. I’ll bring the Dr. Naylor’s hoof junk up with me tomorrow when I go up with grandpa. 

[erydumaenhir]

Goatgate day 4 part 1

Took the goat some extra feed just now (he gets more later). He didn’t seem to have touched the protein pail so I dumped a little in there to encourage him. The alfalfa looks so much better than the dry bleached hay he’s getting right now. It’s actually still green! Only gave him a little bit on top of what he has to get him started. I’ll give him more tonight. He’s still up and standing more which is great news to me. I didn’t want to pester him too much (and the donkey could probably figure out how to open the stall door if I left it unattended too long) so I didn’t look at his feet yet. He’s bleating more, at least. I’m not sure if that’s a particularly good or bad sign but he hasn’t been talking much except when I’ve been pushing him to go from one place to another. He gets really pissy then, probably because he has so little muscle tone.

The jack who was giving me so much trouble last night is still Not Happy about the goat. I have the stall that borders on goat’s stall blocked off, which is normally the jack’s stall for feed, so he’s probably pissy about that too. I only blocked it off ‘cause he was so aggressive while I was moving the goat through his pasture, and it’s not a solid-wall stall, just three 2x6 or 2x4 or something. I don’t want him kicking through the stall to kill the goat. He spends the entire time I’m in the pasture stalking around behind me to beg or food and brays angrily when I go in with the goat. 

Also I think I have given myself blisters on my palms. almost definitely one on my right hand on the fleshy mound below the first and second finger, maybe the second and third as well. Both are warm and swollen/puffy. 

[erydumaenhir]

Goatgate day 3 part 2

I have moved the goat to the barn. That was an hour and a half process and I was stalked by donkeys the entire time I was in the pasture. 

Goat is in the barn that I raked out and put fresh straw down. He has fresh hay and fresh water and his goat protein thing that I got because the goat mineral block I wanted wasn’t at the store. I am too exhausted to pull the 50 pound compressed bale of alfalfa hay to the barn. tomorrow.

Grandpa called me as soon as I got the goat settled. Mom had told him the goat was bothering me apparently. one of his first responses was offering to have the vet come put him down. He says the legs is a neurological thing (which I think is probably bull). He excused the skinniness as him being old. Also I got the concerned “don’t do that again” talk because it was stupid to have done that with the goat and the donkeys. I agree, but still. 

I should probably have said yes, in hindsight. But I just spent a lot of money on him today at the store (a little under $80, but some things weren’t entirely necessary). I just want him to be okay. (Some of it can go to the donkeys I guess. Some of the items were dual purpose anyway.) 

The goat only rates a 1 on this body condition scale [pdf]. He looked better than I thought because of his fur. I probably should have said yes. He’ll probably just put the goat down next week. 

[erydumaenhir]

Goatgate day 3 part 1

I have the goat out in the pasture pen. Couldn’t move the pen to greener pasture, so that’ll have to do for now. Did find trimmers, got 3 of the 4 hooves trimmed so-so before he was so terrified/worked up that I decided to stop. Too hot right now to go back out and shovel the pen right now, so I’ll have to wait on that a bit. (well too humid mostly, but sue me. I have to wear jeans and rubber boots most of the way up my shins.)

gonna go to the feed store and buy some zinc something for his hooves, which he will Not Like, but he can get over it. Think I’m gonna get a bale of good hay for him when I go, too, since the pen in the pasture is mostly dead stuff and some tiny green weeds. I wanna graze him on, you know, grass, or weeds, or shrubs or something, but the donkeys would be jerkwads and I can’t stay out there to defend him. I also can’t stake him out in the yard ‘cause apparently that freaks goats out and all the trees I could use have flowers around them and my grandparents would get pissed. 

Looked at his knees and they look okay right now. And when I checked in his feed box, most of that green foliage I gave him while working in his pen yesterday was stripped clean, so that’s a good sign! 

He’s so bony though. :( Poor baby.