Oops! A booboo!

Dessie, my little Pocket goat doeling, has a booboo in her left eye.  It's all red and yucky looking.  Noticed it last night when I was feeding.  Well, I caught her and tried to look at it.  What a joke!  She was having no part of that.  All I could see was that it was red all around and looked like she had a marble in there instead of an eye.  Ok, so she likely poked it on something or it could be pink eye.  Pink eye is very contagious.  So, I treated it with Polysporin eye drops.  That was a whole new wrestling match that I'm pretty sure my little 15 lbs doeling won.  I did get the drop in her eye but I had way more bruises that she did.  Then I let her go back to her mom for the night.  I didn't think, at that point, it could be pink eye as it came on so suddenly, we've never had a case of pink eye here and there are no new goats in the pasture.  She was fine in the afternoon and then BAM!  So I came in and looked up pictures of pinkeye in goats.  Nope, doesn't look like that.  

So now, two days after starting the write this and not having time, her eye still has some red in it but it is getting better.  Chelsea is home now so she can hold the little devil.  I have been giving her 1 cc Pen Pro and drops in her eye and there is definite improvement.  I'm thinking she'll be right as rain in a day or two.  I'd like to know what she did to herself but she's not talking!

Two posts in less than a week??

Beautiful little BJS Ophelia has finally gone to her forever home with Anne and Ed of Dunnville, Ontario.  She will be joining their small herd of Percy, Mowbray and Alexander.  Ophelia is one of the many kids born in Mar and April of 2011 but for some reason she was never chosen to go to a forever home until now.  Everyone seemed to pass over her even though she is cute and colourful and quite little for her age.  At last she can run and play with kids her own age with no big bully goats to push her around and she will get the best care in the world as Anne and Ed take wonderful care of their little herd and love them dearly.   YAY  Ophelia!!

In other farm news, it's poring rain right now.  It's better than snow.  Well, not much but at least we don't have to shovel it.  I spend altogether too much time shoveling stuff to be shoveling snow too. 

Breeding season is well under way.  Some of the girls have already been bred and are back out with the herd.  Cinda, Rhea, Sprocket and Aura have all been bred.  Not too sure about the rest as  not all the girls make it obvious when they are in heat.  So we just have to wait and see if they get the boys all worked up.  If not, then maybe, just maybe, they are bred.  Oh!  I can't wait for kidding season!!

Now, a word about hunting.

I don't want to offend anyone here....oh crap...maybe I do.  BUT, I don't like hunting.  That is not to say I think no one should ever hunt anything.  Of course you should hunt if you will starve to death if you don't hunt.  (Can't really see that happening in Campbellville but there you go.)  I also believe that it is more humane for a deer to be shot than to starve to death in the winter because there are too many deer and not enough food.

But, I've got a really problem with those macho men (and women) who head out to the back 40 and plug anything that moves with their trusty shot gun.  You see, we live on the edge of a forest that is about 200 acres and even though it is private property I've been hearing shot gun blasts and the occasional rifle crack out there all day.   RIFLE???  Did I say RIFLE??  Yes, I did.  Ok, so right now and for the next 3 days it is hunting season in our neck of the woods but it is hunting season for SHOT GUN and BOW ONLY.  No rifles are allowed.  There's a reason for this.  You see, a shot gun will make a very big noise and shoot a whole bunch of pellets or one good sized slug at a great velocity toward the intended target but you had better be fairly close to that target or the shot is going to run out of steam and flop on the ground like a wet noodle.  The range of the slug depends on the shot gun type, the slug type and many other factors.  I won't go into them here because it would bore most goat owners to death and the ones it wouldn't bore already know what those factors are.    Anyway, my point is shot gun hunting is allowed for 5 days in the fall to help control the deer population in a humane way and most innocent bystanders are relatively safe in their own back yards during the shotgun season because shot guns don't shoot very far.  You need to be fairly close to your target.  However, a rifle is a different story altogether.  A .22 caliber rifle can shoot a projectile, namely a .22 caliber bullet about a mile and a half.  That's not to sat you could shoot flies off a pigs back at a mile and a half.  You'd be lucky to hit the pig but accuracy is not he issue.  Sudden death from a stray bullet is.  Let's say Joe Mean the hunter is back in the forest behind my pasture hunting wolverines with his trusty .303.  Well, first off, Joe Mean is an idiot because there aren't any wolverines in Campbellville but aside from that, let's say he sees something move in the bushes and decides that must be the allusive wolverine he's been tracking.  So...BAMM...he shoots but he misses.  OHOH.  Where the heck did that silly bullet go?  Let's say Joe Mean was facing MY direction when he fired his trusty .303.  Let's say I'm just out standing in my field (pun intended) and THWACK!!  I take one right between the up rights.  Well, DAMN!!  How the heck did that happen??  Joe Mean was a mile back in the forest.  Unh hunh....and how far will a bullet travel?  So you see my point.

So I get to listen to BLAMM  BLAMM  BLAMM all day long, my dogs are going completely nutso cus they know something is in the forest and they can't get to it to shred it like an old paper towel, and I get shot between the ears.  No, I'm not a fan of hunting.

I would think most hunters are safety conscious, know their fire arms and know their targets.  I would expect that most hunters would not shoot at something unless they were 100% sure that what they are aiming at is what they are allowed to shoot.  I expect that most hunters are responsible citizens that leave the alcohol at home when driving to their desired hunting spot.  I expect that most hunters would not hunt on private property that has NO HUNTING signs posted every 50 feet or so.

And I expect I'd be wrong on all counts.

Hunting in the forest behind us is illegal.  Why?   It's private property and I know the owner well and know he would not give anyone permission to hunt back there.  

Hunting during off season is illegal.  Why?  Kind of obvious, isn't it?

Hunting with rifles in this area is illegal.  Why?  See above concerning distance.

Three strikes, you're out!

If it looks, smells and sounds like an idiot, it's probably an idiot.

Written with sincere apologies to all the responsible hunters that are given a bad name by idiots.

Pictures of BJS Iris and her broken horn.

Yeah, i'm still behind....

Good intentions aside, I'm just not getting the part about keeping this blog up to date.  Oh, I think about all the neat things I want to tell you about, usually when I'm down at the barn.  By the time I get back up to the house and sit down in front of my computer, I've either forgotten what I wanted to write or completely forget to write anything at all.

Anyway, since my last post at the end of September, quite a bit has happened.  All the breeders, with the exception of Pebbles and Spooky have been put in the breeding pens.  Hocus has his girl in the SE pen, Pizzazz and his girls are in the SW pen, Captain and ladies in the NW pen and the two little boys who are not big enough to put in with the big boys yet, Propero and Caesar, are in the NW pen.

Funny thing is, Captain, my highly aggressive little pipsqueak of a Nigerian Dwarf buck, is beside and in sight of Pizzazz, my very large but not aggressive Myotonic buck.  He spends more time bashing his head on the dividing fence then he does looking at or wooing his ladies.  I haven't seen him breed anybody!!  That doesn't mean he hasn't...oh and that's a lie anyway, I did see him breed Sprocket so she is back out with the herd.  The other day Captain was bashing his stupid skull on the fence for all he was worth and Pizzazz was just kind of standing there looking at him.  Pizzazz would make some noises and take a step forward like he was going to bash the crap out of the little @#!# but wouldn't actually do anything.  So  BAM BAM BAM goes Captain and then all of a sudden BUWHAMMMM!!!!  goes Pizzazz.  Damn near broke through the fence!  Guess he's had enough or Captain's constantly racket gave him a headache.  So I'm running around trying to find more wood to shore up the fence and once again I hear  BUWHAMMM!!!  CRACK!!!!  OHOH!!  So, Pizzazz hit the fence again and this time all but broke through.  OH CRAP!!!  Ok, so get the drill, get the wood, get the screws.  Run like the dickens to the pen, dropping screws and drill on the way, run back, pick up the drill and screws, drop the drill again, swear, run back to the pen, realize that I left the dril on the ground, swear again, well, you get the picture.  So, I've got the wood, the screws, the drill and a couple of very angry goats.
Step One:  Distract the goats with treats.
Step Two:  Hold up the board to be attached to the fence to reinforce it.
Step Three:  Distract the goats again.
Step Four:  Quickly grab a screw, hold up board and drill the screw into the board.
Step Five:  Take screw out and reposition board.
Step Six:  Distract goats again.

It only took my 1/2 an hour to put up one lousy board.

Oh, and today, Aura went into heat and Pizzazz was completely ignoring her.  Just snoozing in the sun, but Hocus was going bananas.  So, I put her in with Hocus and the deed was done in minutes.  Left her in there for the rest of the day just to be sure.

So then I went to the big pasture and got the goldfish out of the horses' trough and then dumped the trough and put the fish in the pond.

BJS Iris, broke off a horn a few days ago.  Not too badly, just took it down to the nub but it was bleeding and looked kind of nasty so I got Chelsea to hold her while I disinfected, applied Polysporin and bandaged.  It's tricky to bandage a horn.  most of the time the bandage ended up over one of her eyes or it just fell off.  Took some practice to get it on right.

And now the time changes.  I don't like time changes.  It's already past my bedtime!