Overwhelming day...

The reason?  To start the day off, I was done milking, standing behind Cloudy (doe), waiting for her to finish her grain.  I've been treating her for worms (Strongyloids).  I was just looking at her (we have been battling to put weight on her for a long time), and thinking of how long I've been feeding her things that are supposed to fatten her up.  Then I started contemplating putting her down, out of her misery (she's just skinny and acts sad all day, every day).  Cloudy looked at me and that made me cry so hard, just to think about what a sweet goat she's been to us and to never see or milk her again...was awful!
I drenched her with Vitamin C water and then gave her an injection of Iron.

Drenching Cloudy with Vitamin C water.

Giving the Iron injection (IM)

So, that was the first thing I had to deal with.  Then, to make matters worse, almost my whole herd had the sniffles :(  So, while I'm at it, here's a recipe I made up for runny noses, runny eyes, etc.

(I'm not guaranteeing that your goat will get better after mixing up this recipe, but this is at least to try and make them better.)

The Sniffles Recipe: (per cup)

5 Vit C caps

1 8000 I.U. Vit A caps

4 100 mg Vit E gel caps

2 50 mg Zinc caps

4 cc of Nutri-Drench or ProBios

And there you have it, the "Sniffles" recipe :)  Here are some links to purchase some of the vitamins above:

Nutri-Drench:  http://bit.ly/fgqtVx

ProBios {powder:  http://bit.ly/fFi5u0} - {paste in a click-tube:  http://bit.ly/i0bPJr}

Me drenching Ohara with the "Sniffles" recipe (the rest of the herd too)

So, that was pretty much my day!  It's just that time of year!

Good night everyone!

-Hannah

Pen cleaning day

Well...I forgot to post about this past Sunday.  We cleaned and raked the main goat pen within an inch of its life, LOL!  Here are some pictures

Before cleaning

After cleaning

 I like to clean the pen out before snow starts falling, that way we don't trip over frozen hay :)  I like doing this kind of work...It's fun, hard, and dirty!

Lord Willing, I'll be posting those interesting stories of 2010 on New Year's Eve!

Good night everyone
-Hannah

2010 Stories to come...

Keep your eye out for lots of 2010 stories about 7 Thunders Ranch and it's early beginnings!

-Hannah

First "Heimlich" Experience on a goat

Today, I went on a long walk down to our mail box and decided to take little Oreo along with me, since she's all leash trained.  She did great through the whole walk until we got back to the barn and she ate some grain.  She started looking around strangely, not eating any grain, with her eyes all bugged out and cheeks full of grain.  I noticed she wasn't making any noise and she was looking at me like "HELP!"  I just ran out of the goat barn real quick and sucked up some water from the trough into the drencher.  I took her off the milk stand, shot water down her throat and squeezed her belly really hard.  When I did that, she coughed up the big grain clump that was lodged in her throat!  That got my adrenaline pumpin'!

Note to self and ALL:  Never take a goat for a long walk and then immediately feed it grain :)

-Hannah

Cloudy {last winter}-Problem: worms

This is a "story" about how one of our does went down-hill last winter.

Cloudy is one of our very sweet Saanen/Alpine does.  When we got her in the Summer of last year (2009), she was fat, beautiful and full of fur.  Then, it slowly turned into winter and things started to go downhill.  She started to become a bit depressed and was slowly losing her appetite.  Then a couple weeks later, I noticed that some of the hair on her neck was gone.  Over the course of several days, the fur on her neck and under her jaw was almost completely gone.  We thought, "Well, it must be mange or some kind of skin fungus".  So I went on a massive search for a "cure" to her problem.  She had a few of the symptoms for "Sarcoptic Mange".  Reading that, we isolated her from the rest of the herd and went to the CO-OP to buy a fungal skin spray to put on her neck.  That didn't help, in fact, it seemed to get worse!  Then I bought a paste for mange, that didn't help either!

On top of all her other symptoms, she started to produce big, open sores.  I did find a fast cure for that though.  It's called Multi+Care Liquid Wound Spray by Cut Heal.  (See pic above - click to enlarge)

And to make matters worse, she was pregnant!  I was concerned about the kids and her health.  Every day, I was making up my own little drench solution of various herbs and vitamins, and it still wasn't helping.

So the time came for her to kid (give birth).  Thankfully, our more experienced friends were over to help us with the birth.  She had a 14-15 hour labor and then gave birth to 2 beautiful, healthy kids!  We were SO thankful!!  But, Cloudy wound up with a "C" shaped spine.  Other than that and her skin problems, she seemed fine.  I wormed her with Cydectin after the birth (which is what I had been using for the past few months and not been rotating with any other wormers). A couple days after her birth, our friends came up with the idea that it might be a Copper deficiency.  We were willing to try ANYTHING to cure her at this point!  So we got 4 Copper bolluses and did a little "treatment" on her.  I gave her 2 bolluses one day and then 10 days later, gave her the other 2.

It was like 2 weeks after I gave her the copper that she just sprung back to life and started to gain weight again.  That was pretty exciting to say the least.

This year, she had the same sort of thing show its ugly head.  That's when we did a fecal sample and it turned out that she had the "Strongyloid" worm strain.  I immediately treated her for it with SafeGuard and she's getting better already!  I'm just thankful we caught it really early.  Cydectin will NOT kill this type of worm!  Copper can actually temporarily lessen the worm population in the goat's system, and that's why she got better for a while.

Here's what I did and all you goat owners should do too:  Take 2 berries (poop) from 3-4 goats that you most concerned about in your herd and mix the berries together.  Then take the one whole sample to the vet (it was only $12 at my vet) and get it tested.  If one goat has it, your whole herd most likely has it!


Side-Note (not for the squeemish):  You may have to extract the berries manually (not fun).  To do this, put one finger in the goat's rectum until you feel ball-like things, then curl your finger and try not to lose the berry.  This is very difficult for a beginner, so just be patient and you'll get it in no time!  The goat will not appreciate this either :)

Anyway, it was a good learning experience for all of us and we'll probably use it in the future.


-Hannah

Sunday Fun!

Today, we had a bunch of farm projects going on.  We were building another stall, because our kidding season is somewhat "packed".  Here are some pics of today!

Some other misc. farm pics of the day.

 
 Good night everyone!  I'll be posting up a goat "story" Lord willing tomorrow!

-Hannah

Sunday worming fiasco!

Well...I got to treat all 12 of my goats for worms the other day...FUN :)  It all started with my friends' goats having some worm issues in their herd.

They found out through a fecal sampling that it was a worm called "Strongyloids".  The wormer that we all had been using was Cydectin, which doesn't treat that particular strain of worms.  So they told us that we should look into getting some of our goats tested, one goat in particular.  And guess what I got to do???  Of course I had to stick my finger up a goats butt in order to get the "reward", LOL!  Anyway, we took the sample to the vet and sure enough, it turned up the SAME exact strain of worms as my friends' goats.

We used SafeGuard to treat all of our goats, because if one goat has it, most likely your whole herd has it!  So, that is what I did on Sunday!  One of our goats already looks a little better.  I'll hopefully post some pics up soon.

Good night!
Hannah

Welcome!

Hi all,

Thanks for visiting 7 Thunders Ranch blog!  This blog is an addition of Sunnydew Farm, which will be pulled down soon.  Please feel free to follow and post comments!  On this blog, there will be plenty of updates on our "farmy" life!

Want a goat?  Email me and I'll put you on our waiting list.  Then, when a kid is born, we'll email you and let you know!

I hope you like this blog and all of its contents!  Comments are ALWAYS welcomed!

~Hannah~