A boy and his (miniature) horse

May 31st 2014 was Purina Day at the Huntsville Alabama Tractor Supply store.  William was spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa Dake so he wasn't with us.  I didn't know about Purina Day until Greg and I stopped by there to buy livestock feed.  I talked to several people that had animals there, and managed to find a buyer for all of my pedigreed French Angora rabbits.  Right beside them was a guy with a horse trailer and four miniature horses for sale.  I asked him if any of them were broke for a kid to ride and he said one was.  It was a chocolate palomino stallion about five years old.  I led it around and checked its teeth and feet and asked the seller how he knew it was trained to ride.  He tied the lead rope to its halter and sat on this tiny horse and rode it around the parking lot.  I noticed then that the horse was five-gaited as well, so it was pretty much a miniature Tennessee Walking Horse.  The seller was asking the same amount of money I'd just been offered for my Angora rabbits, so I followed my gut and impulse-bought a horse for the first time in my life.  The tiny horse was delivered and gelded that same afternoon, and the rabbits were sold as well.  

William got to meet his new horse on Sunday evening, June 1st, and finally the horse got a new name - Popcorn.

 He didn't have a name on his health certificate, just a number - 034.  From that, I knew he'd gone through a sale barn.  I'm sure at some point he HAD a name, we just have no way to find out what it was.  He has excellent manners, is very calm and is indeed quite well trained for kids to ride, brush, pick out hooves, pet, lead around, etc.  When we got him he was skinny and dirty, in need of some weight and some grooming.

He also had a cough that showed up after a couple of days with us.  After a visit from our veterinarian he got anti-inflammatory meds and a 10-day course of antibiotics, and the cough cleared up.  The vet also confirmed his age as between 5 and 6 years old, so Popcorn could be William's buddy for another 30 years or more with the right care.

Twenty-six days later, Popcorn has gained some weight (but not too much and not too fast, because we don't want him to founder) and gotten lots of grooming and attention.

He's also worn a harness and been hooked up to a mini cart - he didn't mind it but he didn't really know what was expected of him.  I think he'll be very easy to train to pull the cart, so even the adults here can have some fun with him.

He looks much better and is even sweeter and quieter than when he arrived.  William rides him bareback with a parent leading them around, and absolutely loves it.

He also helps keep Popcorn's stall clean and move the portable paddock to fresh grass every 2 or 3 days, and gives Popcorn his daily handful of mini horse feed.

At the time I wondered if I was nuts to buy a horse on impulse, but now I think it was one of the best split-second decisions I ever made.  

2014 Goat Kidding stories, last two

Ruby Goat (so called because we have long had a horse named Ruby)  was next to kid, and she had another textbook kidding.  Buck/doe twins, born and walking and nursing when I found them the morning of April 12th.  The doeling got the spots for once, and the buckling is just plain brown.

RubyG's twins, buck on left, doe on right.  Just born, still wobbly.  :)

Last to kid was Amelia, with doe/doe twins.  I was lucky enough to be in the barn when she went into labor and got to see the birth.  She had a tiny brown doeling with a half-belt, and a loud-spotted black and white doeling.

Amelia's twin doelings, just born.

Unfortunately, the black and white spotted doeling got under the stall door, and into the barn hallway.  She got too cold away from her mother and was almost dead when I found her.  I tried to warm her up but she was too far gone, and died.  :(  That really hurt, because she was gorgeous and her mother is an awesome milker.  More daughters from her would be great.

RIP Wingnut Farms H/A Mighty Shiny

More goat kidding stories

Our second kidding of the 2014 season was on April 6th, and this one went just the way I like it.  I got to the barn in the morning and Hermione had a gorgeous black and white spotted doeling already standing, nursing, and mostly dry.

Hermione's gorgeous spotted doeling

I managed to get the doeling dried some more, and purposefully got some birthing fluids on my hands.  I let Hermione sniff my hands and she started licking them clean, which is what I wanted to happen.  She was almost impossible to catch before kidding, and this way she thought I was one of her kids and has become easier to catch.  She behaves well on the milk stand, has very nice teats with large orifices, and her milk is high butterfat and sweet.  She has a forever home here, that's for sure.

Then on April 9th the roller coaster went back downhill and we had a very difficult kidding for our doe Lilly.  She had triplet bucklings, but the first two were trying to make their entrance into the world at the same time.  I didn't realize it until I started helping, pulling on feet when Lilly pushed.  After a good bit of this, I realized I had one front foot and one back foot.  So either we had a kid trying to come out sideways, or we had two different kids.  I tried to push the hind foot back in and get the front foot kid out, but couldn't.  So I pushed the front foot kid back, and went in looking for another hind foot.  I finally found it, and got the first kid out breech.  Then the front-foot kid started to present, and came out relatively easily.  Then the third kid was breech, and huge, and stuck in the birth canal.  I was really afraid I was looking at an emergency C-section to get it out, but with some wiggling him around and getting feet out, Lilly and I managed to get him born.  He was a monster, 8 lbs at birth, and a gorgeous black and sable color.

Newborn triplet bucklings, still wet and still haven't eaten

Lilly was in bad shape after the kidding, though.  She was bleeding bright red blood from her vagina, and she was lying down grunting.  Sadly, I had to put her down because she had torn internally and was bleeding out.  Her black buckling died sometime in the night.  He never stood unassisted and he never ate.  Then I had to make an even more difficult choice.  Lilly was CAE positive, which is a disease kids can get from their dams from milk, or sometimes even en utero.  So the two surviving bucklings were a liability, possibly CAE positive, and having to be bottle fed.  I chose to euthanize both of them rather than risk them passing CAE off to the other goats in the herd.  

And that's all the time I have for kidding stories today.  More soon!

Trying to catch up

I'm going to try to do one new post and one "archive" post a day, until I get caught up to the present time and no longer need to do archives.

Checking in...

I just can't get into the habit of blogging.  There are lots of things I want to write about, but never remember to do so.

I suppose one thing any goat owner looks forward to and dreads at the same time, is kidding season.  Sometimes kidding season is smooth and disaster-free, sometimes it is one disaster after another.  Most years it is a mix of the two.  This year was a mixture.  Our first kidding of the year was in mid-February, and it was a cold night.  Little Bit had been laying around for several days, eating hay and chewing cud but only getting up to drink water.  When she finally went into labor, nothing happened for several hours.  When I went in to check her cervix, it was completely dilated and I could feel a kid's butt.  No feet.  Not good.  I ended up finding hind feet and pulling a live doeling, after which Little Bit immediately started pushing again.  This time two front feet presented and silly me thought this kid would come on out with no help.  Nope.  Her head was back, behind her front leg, almost on her chest.  I had to work really hard to keep the feet in front, find her head, pull it straight and finally pull her out.  She had been kicking and had a pulse while I re-positioned her, but by the time she was out she wasn't moving or trying to breathe.  Attempts to resuscitate her proved futile, so we concentrated on saving her sister.  Lots of very warm water in the sink in the house later, she was stable and is alive and healthy today.  We brought her dam inside, to our bathroom, to keep them both warm and in ear-shot for the night.  The next morning the dam was dead.  Autopsy showed she had torn internally and bled out into her abdomen.  Her daughter was named Chilly.

And it's time to go take care of goats and rabbits and horses so that's all the kidding stories I have time for today.

So many critters, so little time.

Our little horse herd is up to five members now.  And I have little to no time/babysitting available to work with any of them.  I answered a CraigsList ad for an Icelandic mare for sale, and ended up buying her.  She's adorable, smart, and didn't jump the fence and run away.  She's 18 years old, given riding lessons, jumped, shown in several different disciplines, and I think just about perfect for the kids around here to ride.  Her name is Jonina (Yo-neena).  She's hanging out in the pond pasture with the other three mares and all seems well.

All four Nubian does kidded in February, which means last October was a happy time for our buck Hondo.  :) Little Bit went first, as I've already posted about.  Her twins were named Annabelle (the doeling) and Macadamia Brownie, Brownie for short (the buckling).  My neighbor named the buckling, and I named the doeling.  When I was growing up our two best milkers were a Toggenburg/Nubian cross doe named Annabelle and her daughter Little Bit (1/4 Togg 3/4 Nubian).  So now, I have a Little Bit and her daughter Annabelle.  :)

Viola was next to kid, and she also had buck/doe twins.  The buckling is drop-dead gorgeous, black with lots of white spots and great conformation.  Too bad he's to be wethered because he can't be registered.  I named him Rocky Road, Rocky for short.  My vet said he wants to buy Brownie and Rocky, as he has two goats and really liked those two.  Viola's doeling is black with frosted ears, crown and nose and a few white spots.  Not nearly as flashy as her brother but still pretty.  I named her Allegra.

Then Oreo kidded with another set of buck/doe twins.  Unfortunately the doeling was trampled to death when the herd panicked in a sudden storm.  She was only a week or so old, and it was her and her dam and brother's first day out of the barn with the herd.  She never even got a name.  She was brown with frosted ears, nose and crown and a partial white belt.  Her brother is huge, black with frosted ears, nose and crown and some white spots.  I named him Jethro because he's very big and very clumsy but endearing in his own way.

Madeline was last but certainly not least.  She had a single doeling, but wow what a doeling.  Her daughter is long, level backed, wide bodied but still very dainty and dairy.  She's also black with frosted ears, nose and crown.  She has a small splash of white on one side.  I think she's the pick of the doeling crop for this year.  I named her Adelaide as it seemed to go well with her dam's name.

After all the kidding was done here, we drove 6 1/2 hours to Saucier, Mississippi to pick up the doeling I had put a deposit on back in January of this year.  Her dam was in the Top Ten in the nation two years in a row for production and butterfat, and one of those years she was also in for milk solids.  So I'm expecting great things from this little girl when she freshens next spring.  Her name is Athena, she is red roan with frosted ears, nose and crown.

I didn't plan to have all the doelings from this year have their names start with "A,"  it just kind of happened.  Athena was named first, then Annabelle.  Then Adelaide.  Then I figured I'd continue the trend and named Viola's doeling Allegra.  I'm keeping all the doelings born here and of course keeping Athena.  Oreo and her buckling Jethro are for sale.  I suspect this is Madeline's last year to kid, so I've not even been milking her, just letting Adelaide have all the milk to grow to her best potential.

First goat kids of 2012

Wednesday afternoon, Feb 8th, I thought our doe Viola was in early labor. So I left her in the "maternity ward" stall in the barn and checked on her every couple of hours or so. I noticed Little Bit wasn't with the rest of the herd but hanging around the barn, but I figured it was just because I was there. She's our "puppy dog" doe, who would rather be with humans than goats. On my 4pm or so barn check I took loose minerals with me to refill feeders, and when I went in the "communal" stall the rest of the herd uses, Little Bit ran in with me. I turned around to shoo her out and lo and behold, she's laying down grunting and a water bag is appearing. She had no goo, had just started barely bagging up, and no sign of being ready to kid.  Within ten minutes she had given birth to twins, one buckling and one doeling!  Both very healthy, very cute and very active.  

And Viola still hasn't kidded.  After Viola will be Oreo if I don't sell her first, then Madeline if she is even pregnant.  She doesn't look it but then Little Bit didn't look ready to pop out twins either.