Glad news and sad news

First the glad news . . .

I'm very happy to report that little Rosie has improved enough to be let out with her extended family. Actually, she insisted on being let out last Sunday night. I was feeding the other animals and I could hear Rosie in her dog crate in the house yelling as loud as she could. I hurried to finish my chores and fixed Rosie her bottle. She drank that and then stepped out of the crate. I knew that meant she wanted to go outside to do her business.

I took her out to the backyard. She did her job and then began grazing on her favorite treat in the yard, my only rose. After a few minutes of that I took her back inside and placed her in the crate with much protest from her. Soon she began yelling that yell again. I thought she must want some more greens so I went outside and picked her a very nice salad of greens from the yard. There was a cup or more and she ate most of it. Then she began to yell again. Back out to the yard I took her. Back inside and more yelling. It was apparent that Rosie was finished with being cooped inside. It was also apparent that if she did not go out with her family I was not going to sleep that night.

Rosie went out to be with her family. Mom was happy to see her as was brother and they welcomed her back. Rose was ecstatic and jumped and ran and butted heads with her brother. She has been out for a week now and finished off her round of meds out there. She has a bit of residual cough, but it is improving and she is eating and playing like a normal kid.

And now the sad news . . .
I have had the pasture divided with an electrified net fence because I had some work to do on the perimeter fence to make it goat and coyote proof. I felt the goats were safe behind the net fence and the perimeter fence was not a high priority.

When I came home from work on Friday--the 13th--I saw one of the mother goats laying next to the net fence far apart from the other goats. Then I noticed that part of the fence was toppled over and I had a sinking feeling about what I would find there. I went to investigate and found two-month-old Goldie laying dead, caught in the fence. She had apparently stuck her head through to eat the grass on the other side and her horns prevented her from pulling back. In her panic the situation went from bad to worse and she died. I'm heartbroken to think of how awful her last minutes were. Her mother called all weekend listening for her kid to call back. I have apologized to her for the part I played in the tragedy.

The net fence is now gone. I will never again use that type of fence with horned baby goats.

Rosie the Bottle Baby

This is Rosie. She is a registered Colored Angora Goat. She and her brother Blue were born on March 29, 2011. Rosie's mother has only one functioning udder. She favored brother Blue from birth and did not let Rosie have her fair share of milk.

I started bottled feeding extra milk to Rose as soon as I realized that the mother goat was not providing her with enough milk and was favoring brother Blue. I don't know how much colostrum sweet Rose received from Mom, but I do know that she has been holding her own drinking from the bottle and what she could glean from Mom. At just over a month old she is now sampling greens in the pasture and eating some of the goodies in the kid creep-feeder.

Last Thursday I heard her cough. I didn't think much of it because she had been digging into the food I had just put out for the adult goats and I thought she probably had gotten a bit down the wrong pipe. It was just one cough . . .

Then Friday I heard her cough again, and she didn't drink as much milk as she had been doing. By Saturday it was very obvious that little Rose was sick. It was a beautiful sunny day and the other goats were enjoying pasture time on one of the first great days this spring. Rose followed them out and then lay down, not eating. I watched her and became more concerned.

Sunday it was the same. Beautiful day, other kids romping madly around the pasture, Rosie eating a bit and then sleeping.

In my area large animal vets are becoming very scarce. And very few of them take emergency weekend calls. I knew that I would have to wait for Monday to get Rose in for medical attention. I brought her in the house and set her up in a large dog crate. I filled a vaporizer and set that up near her.

On Monday I got Rose in to see the vet. The diagnosis is pneumonia. She is on a strong round of antibiotics and vitamin shots. So far she is doing well. She is still coughing, but the rapid breathing and fevers have subsided. On warm days I put her out with her family for short periods so that she can have sunshine and fresh greens.

I hope this sweet little goat pulls through this. For now all I can do is keep her warm and well-fed and give her the medications that will help her beat the bug.

Welcome to the Idaho Mohair blog. Here you will find information about farming on a very small scale. I have chosen Colored Angora Goats as my farm product and brought the first goats to the farm in June of 2010.

I'll blog about my experiences involving the goats, farm living, marketing and anything else that I think my be interesting to someone reading about my farm.