This And That

Ian author of Farm Blogs from Around the World has added me to his list! I was recommended by Lynda from Food Fun and Farm Life in South Africa. Thank you Lynda and Ian! I now have a long list of very interesting farm blogs to read and learn from. I could spend days just reading and learning from all these wonderful bloggers.

On a different subject. I have had several people puzzled about disbudding baby goats. It is the most painful thing I know of done to such sweet little young kids. I hate it but if you have ever had to go out several times a day to get a goats head out of a fence or a place they got it stuck in because of their horns. If you have ever seen them fight with those horns or been hit with them you would understand just a few of the reasons disbudding is done. Our registered Nubian's are sold for showing and they need to be disbudded. What happens is you have a tool that looks like a curling iron and you heat it till its VERY hot. Test it on a piece of wood and make sure it leaves a burnt circle. Then you are ready for the kids. You are suppose to have built a box to contain them while you do this but we haven't yet. We have several people hold them while one disbuds. The kids screams, the mom screams, I usually have my eyes closed but this time I couldn't. After its all over the kid goes back to mom, nurses and gets comforted and usually takes a nap. The nap is probably from the pain medication I give them 30 minutes before the disbudding. The pictures below are from when William was doing the disbudding. I didn't have enough hands helping to take pictures of my first experience at hurting the babies.

Disbudding

Not everything is smiles and fun in raising goats. Sometimes there is pain and unhappiness, especially at dis budding time. To register our Nubian's the American Dairy Goat Assoc. requires we dis bud (burn their little horns off) them. Some can be horned and registered but if they are show goats they must be dehorned. Since our kids are descendants of a state champion show goat (Nitro) and we put that in our ads to sell our goats we need to disbud. We started out with a buzz cut around their little nubs.

This they didn't mind at all. The vibration seemed to lull them to sleep except Padro. He cried the whole time but only because he couldn't move around like he wanted to. Next I gave each one 2ml of owie ease, a herbal pain medication.
It doesn't taste that good but works really great for the pain they have to endure. We gave them an hour for the tincture to work and then we had to do what we really really dread doing. We had to heat up the dis budder. It looks like a curling iron with a hole on the end. It has to be super hot so it will burn the skull around the nub to stop it from growing. You also have to be extra careful not to leave the iron on the skull too long or it can cause brain damage. If you don't leave it on long enough then the nubs will grow into horns and will have to be surgically removed. This happened to us last year with Frosty Dan and Brown Robyn. William tests the iron's heat on a piece of wood to make sure its hot enough.
Then its time to dis bud the babies. I held the body still. Larry our handyman held the head and William did the dis budding. None of us liked our job and I kept my eyes closed while it was actually burning.
The kids cried a little but not as much as I expected. After all were done Mom checked them out, let them nurse and then they went to sleep. Later they were up running and playing like nothing had happened. The bad part is we have to do this again next week with Sammi's 4 kids. Anyone want to visit and help?

Not Today, I Have a Headache!

Here is Brown Robyn a day after his traumatic experience.

Frosty Dan's poor little burnt head. He handled the disbudding the best.

The boys seem to be doing okay today. They don't want me to get too close as they are afraid I will hurt them. I had to walk them down to put the salve on their heads and gave them one more dose of the herbal tonic. They are only 3 weeks old but have gotten so tall! It was cooler this evening and they seemed to be feeling well enough to play. Can you believe these are Diva's little babies!

They don't have that sparkle back in their eyes yet or getting into mischief like they normally do but at least they are playing again.

Sister Sister hatched a baby duckling Friday evening. William and I were out feeding and got to see it hatch. At first Sister Sister didn't want anything to do with this strange chick but we left it with her and checked on them during the night. The next morning she had cleaned it a little but was more interested in sitting on the other eggs. I took the little black duckling and put it in with Sister and her baby duckling. Right away she scooted it under her wing and sat on it till I walked away. She cleaned it up really well. She now has 2 baby ducklings she is mothering. I put a pan of water in the pen today and when the oldest duckling tried to get in she clucked at him and made him get away from the water. A few minutes later the little duckling tried to get in the water and the bigger duckling fussed at him and made him get away from the water. They are so cute to watch and Sister has done a good job of teaching them to scratch for food. She just needs to chill out while they learn to swim!

This is the best photo I could get of the ducklings. Sister Sister is very protective of her "chicks" She was standing in front of them clucking at me for being near their pen.

Thank you everyone for the sweet and caring comments from yesterday's post. I try to keep things light and upbeat on the blog so apologise for dumping my stressful weekend on you. Today is the beginning of a new week, new day, new start. Going to make the best I can out of it. I am very blessed in so many many ways.