Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I just don't seem to have a life outside of them these days.
Today a a pretty much wasted day. I didn't rise until noon and then spent most of the day just keeping up with my milking and baby feeding. Not doing much of anything else.
Vi-vi is warming up nicely. I've been bringing her inside to take naps with me on the couch. She gets a bit fidgety when she has to wee so I know when to take her back outside again. But she curled up on top of me and napped for about an hour today.
She has entropion in her left eye. I've been putting ointment in it and rolling the eyelid back into position by hand in hopes that it will correct itself. The vet wants 250 dollars to fix it surgically. This is way more than Vi-vi is worth. Even if she were a full grown milker with excellent production, it would probably be more than her worth. So I can't really justify spending that sort of money on her. I looked up the various ways to treat this and will try some of those. Betsy has michel surgical clamps and I can use those without anesthesia to try to hold her eyelid in place. I looked up how to do it and it isn't that complicated. This condition happens to lambs and is inherited in sheep. They don't know if it is inheritable in goats.
A woman shared with me one of the local remedies for livestock eye problems. Put salt in the eye. Don't think so. 10% sterile saline with a bit of boric acid is as close as we'll get to that. You have to exercise some judgement with the suggestions they give up here. They used to give animals kerosene for whatever ailed them. My feeling is most of the successes were from self-limiting conditions.
"Little" Phoebe is a force to be reckoned with. She must weigh 35 pounds at this point. She likes to nurse rather energetically on my earlobes. She has picked up all of BossyToe's bad habits but unlike BossyToe...who is still small enough for me to pick up and heft back over the gate...Phoebe is so enormous that she's hard on my back.
So...not much today. I'm just sort of worn out with all the goat nursing. At least the pastures are starting to green up.
I like reading your posts about them, though.
Wow....
I so wish I could sleep that long. But I will be up again in a few hours.
Hon, goats are goats. It's a business before it is a love of the individual and like it or not, it has to be business like.
Be wise and go with the strongest, don't let love and worry break you. This really isn't 'All Things Great And Small'.
This is life and you should only take on what you can afford to be responsible for.
I don't take on being responsible for living things that I can't properly care for. Hugs.
I did leave him out in the pasture with his brother for a while today and he seemed to like that...hopefully I'll be able to do that more often.
ANYWAY....local remedies around here always seem to include some sort of petrol....like the guy down the valley who was putting motor oil on his horses gaping leg wound....oy.
i'm not familiar with entropion in sheep, dogs but not sheep.
someone had offered me a free churro ewe last year who had a partial split in one upper eyelid which is somethig to avoid breeding...her lambs didnt have it tho. i was told that with a partial split they can still be registered but not with full split...but still i was careful in choosing my lambs that i have now.
good luck with her.
Go figure.
The learning curve for goats the first year or so can be worrisome to deal with- after that, it becomes old hand. It s a DIY business. IT's just learning the DIY that can be frustrating.
I have one new goat person- 'nelly' to the max and more money than they need- who calls the vet at the drop of a hat and of course, they call the most expensive one around. I think she's on the curve up becasue she's listening to me before she brings a vet out now for the most trivial things- he told her that she'd have to abort out her doe to treat a runny nose! Luckily her babies got here OK the first time, so she's doing better.
Don't worry about Vi- it will likely work itself out.
btw> new blog on my page.
goat yoda
Erin, I think many of the old time remedies involve petroleum products of some sort...or the roots or leaves of something noxious. The same rhododendren that makes my goats so sick was recommended to me as a chicken wormer. I don't think goats get that split eyelid thing. Least, I've never heard of it.
Thanks, Betsy...Vi-vi does seem to be working herself out. If I had gobs of money, I'd probably be hauling their asses to UT every week, too. Thank god you've been here for my damn learning curve...it's been going on for three years at this point.