Garden Goats
by
I
have just come in from closing my
goats up for the night, the temperature has not gone above freezing all day and
snow is promised for tonight. When I opened them up this morning their buckets
of water were frozen solid. I replaced them with warm water but I don`t think it
stayed warm very long. I made sure there was plenty of hay for everyone
and when I let them out they did not seem too bothered about the cold.
Tonight I have left the heat lamp over a couple of particularly small kids, not
sure if it was for their benefit or mine, I rather feel it was more for mine.
Kidding
is over for the time being, I had the usual ups and downs I now associate with
kidding. Two goats presented heads only (no legs in sight), with Cerys
I managed to bring one leg forward and the kid shot out rather like
Superman and the second kid followed easily. Crystal wasn`t so lucky, even the
vet couldn`t help with her kid and sadly the kid died. Then twins were born to a
first time kidder, very fast and very small. The boy knew he had to look for
milk in principle, but kept getting under his sister instead of his mum, after a
while he started to get weaker so I decided it was time to intervene. Being
unable to get him to take from his mum and not wanting to put mum off feeding
the other kid, I gave him 30ml of
Colstart, a colostrum substitute, from a bottle. To my delight, he finished it
off in a few minutes and was much happier. I fed him another couple of times and
once I decided he was strong enough to try his mother, I held the mother and
lifted the kid up to the teat. He latched on straight away, had a good drink and
has never looked back.
Unfortunately,
two other goats turned out not to be pregnant. I blame that on the fact that due
to fly strike on the male I borrowed I was unable to keep him for the three
weeks after mating which is the safest way of making sure. I have one left to
kid at the beginning of March, hopefully it will be warmer by then.
To
take into account the Queen`s Diamond Jubilee, the bank holiday at the end of
May has been put forward to the beginning of June. The Surrey Show, which is
always that weekend, has obviously also changed. This will cause problems for
the South of England Show which will be 5 days later. Without an isolation unit
exhibitors will not be able to go to both shows, owing to the 6 day standstill
rule.
As
we have so few shows in the South East and very few exhibitors it will sadly
affect both shows.
I
have an isolation unit so it is not that difficult to obtain, it does not
require a lot of room and as far as I can remember it did not cost anything. If
you are interested you can find out more about from your vet or Trading
Standards.
I
had a nice surprise last week when I went to my forage merchant. The price of
hay had gone down to £6.00 and according to my goats it is very tasty. I do not
know how long it will last so I had better stock up.
When
you read this, the daffodils will be in full bloom and we can be looking forward
to some warmer weather in which to enjoy our goats.