their excitement can be a bit short lived, huh? : ) They sure are fun to watch though.
Heat stricken hen
They sure are Lady Bug. They still seem to be enjoying the extra space just that now they're remembering their pool too. The chickens are having a blast. It's been raining most of the day and they didn't want to stay indoors. They'd go in and eat and then run back outside. They were using some shrubs to keep dry LOL
Went up to the goats just now and found my Bonnie limping. Looks like a small cut on her left foot so I sprayed it with Blucoat. When Paul gets home we'll take closer look at it.
MollyD
It seems weird to me that you all have had rain almost all day.....just because we have been dry and sunny.....finally.
What is Blucoat? Do you all trim their hooves?
Christy
Blucoat is an antiseptic. It's dark blue when you spray it on so you can be sure you hit the right spot.
Yes hooves have to be trimmed. They'll begin to curl at the edges and you need to trim them back. My mentor showed me how to do it. He puts the goat in a milking stand with it's head locked in place. He gives them a little grain to keep them happy while he works. He told me to look where the hoof meets the hairline. That forms a straight line. The bottom of the hoof should parallel that line with about 1.5 - 2" distance (can be more depending on the goats size). You never cut into the pink of the hoof. Also he trims the area between the two sections of their feet.
Here are some links that show this:
http://www.boergoatshome.com/hooves.php
http://fiascofarm.com/goats/hoof-trim-rf.htm
http://raising-goats.blogspot.com/2007/08/raising-goats-includes-trimming-hooves.html
That should give you something to start with ^_^
MollyD
Thank you so much for the links Molly. I already went and looked at them. Very helpful. My DH used to trim our dairy cows hooves (our high was 126 of them) and I was wondering if it was a lot like that. I just found out it is different and a lot easier! With cows, you have to trim and shape each section of the hoof and it is VERY important to how it was done or the cow couldn't walk. I'll have to show DH the links too.
We'll have to get some of those trimming shears though. We have one of those planers the first link was talking about, but it is for cows and might be a bit too aggressive for much smaller hooves.
Did Paul get to look at Bonnie's sore yet?
Not yet. He got home after dark so he's going to look tomorrow morning. I'm glad I got the antiseptic on it .
Not having done any animals I'm a bit nervous about hoof trimming. Seems even harder than giving them their shots! Worming too was easy.
I was told to double the dosage since goats rid themselves of excess medicine and by doubling the dose you get rid of all the worms and not just some of them.
MollyD
Yeah, real good thing you got the antiseptic on it. I wonder if giving shots to goats is like giving shots to calves. With a calf I would have to get the shot ready, put the cap back on, put it in the top of my bibs, then corner the calf against a wall or fencing, using my legs, thighs and belly in a funny looking squat......and position the underside and side of the calf on my thighs and belly, then grab the top of the fence with one hand for leverage, use my other one to grab the syringe and then give the shot. They never cared for that much and if you didn't hold them like that with a good hold and pressure, they would run off on you, pulling the needle out or taking it with them as they went, before I could get the medicine in them......then have to start over again. Is it anything like that?
Thats good to know about the worm medicine....I didn't know that!
i got a catlaog recently showing a nicely built wooden apparatus for restraining kids-goats while dehorning, tatooing, grooming, trimming hooves, giveing meds and shots. i'll see if they have a website. they had two, one was almost 50 bucks the other closer to seventy. and you could buy the non-wooden piece and the plans to build the better one for about 11 bucks! we need one right away, time to trim hooves, and those yealring kids are BIG!
I would like to see that tf. I just told DH that we are going to have to start handling them a lot more so it would be a lot easier to work on them when the time comes. We missed out on a fancy head shoot thing made with heavy metal....you could put the goat in it, strap them down, then turn them on their sides so you could get to everything easily. We had left the sale while they sold of mainly 'junk' stuff we were not interested and thought the contraption would go for more than we had to spend.....we learned later in went for $30.....kick, kick,kick........
Ladybug I did the kids. Paul held them in his arms while I pinched some skin on their necks and gave them the shot. I had no trouble with the first one but the second one kept jerking away as the needle went in. He got jabbed 4 times to get his one shot!
Paul took a look at Bonnie's foot. We agreed that there is a slight swelling on what I would call the shin bone and he called the ankle. She is limping. Neither of us could find a cut/thorn/other foreign bodies. It's not broken cause we saw her using it to scratch her head. It is tender. I wonder if she slipped in the mud. It was raining all day yesterday. Maybe wrenched it?
I'll be on sporatically. I had a major computer crash this morning and had to re-install windows. Could not even get system restore to work! I'm trying now to re-install software cause I lost everything I had on the computer.
MollyD
Oh, how awful, Molly. I lost my computer to lightning 2 years ago, so I know how terrible a crash can be. Hope you can get your software installed okay.
GG
hey Molly, I hope Bonnie will be ok soon and she didn't do anything to bad to herself!
Was it lighting? I know you said yesterday you had to get off the pc because it was lighting. That happened to me once too, and it was awful! Hope you are back up and running soon!
Christy
Christy I don't know if it was lightning or not. My computer is hooked up to UPS with surge protection but those things aren't perfect. I've gotten some of my software installed. Lost licenses to some software. Waiting to hear from the companies involved. Lost tons of pictures. Going through DG postings of mine to get copies of some of them. Lost a ton of bookmarks :-( that's going to take time to replace! Having a problem with the computer blacking out when I type. Last time UniBlue registry booster fixed that. Waiting for license to try it out. I haven't done a major re-install like this in ten years. This computer is an E Machine by Gateway and I can not recommend it to anyone. Seems unstable. Hopefully next spring I can replace it with a Dell.
MollyD
oh goodness Molly....what a mess! Did you have any of your pics saved to disk my any chance?
Christy I had up to last years pictures on cd's but anything from Spring this year on I didn't have copies of. Just found a whole bunch of the chicks, geese,ducks and goats here on DG so at least I've got copies of those.
Now to track down some plant pictures. Lost some of Paul cause I've never posted them here.
MollyD