Just a little goat play

We got this playset two weeks ago and finally got it put together (with the help of a much stronger male friend) last night.  

The goats can't climb rungs, so this morning I nailed a piece of plywood to the rungs and nailed a couple pieces of wood across it to help the goats get up.  

We tried to lure them up with treats

Kelly has always been more agile and athletic than Carrie, so it was no surprise that Carrie quickly gave up.

I realized that the plywood was just too steep for them, so I moved a crate over hoping it might help a little.

Kelly was the only one that was willing to try.

Checking the gap

Look at the back foot dangling

She got down and came back two minutes later to try again

And she made the jump

After she finished eating she discovered this handy head scratcher.

 And she seemed to enjoy tasting all of the pieces of the structure.

Carrie on the other hand didn't get very far.

She spent the first 15 minutes just pressing her face against my leg.

She managed to take one step off the ground.

And then I tried to lure her up with more treats.

But the jump was just too much for her and she quickly got off the crate.

I'll build something to make their climb up a bit easier for them.

During all of this, Jenny was perfectly happy laying her fat belly down in the old dog house.

Only about 7 more days until she gives birth

Knocked Up

Remember four months ago when the neighbors took our goats?  And put them in with their male goats?

Do you notice something wrong with Jenny's stomach???

In case you still haven't seen it....

What are you trying to take a picture of?

Happy Birthday!!!

One year ago today I came home to this...

And tonight I have this...

Happy Birthday girls!

Giving the goats something more

When I picked up all of those shipping crates I knew that I would make the goats an additional shelter.  I started building this towards the end of the coop project.

I've gotten much better at certain things so this was much faster.  I added the roof by using a piece off of another crate and reinforced the corners of the crate with 2 x 4s that would angle and support a roof.

I cut two different size doorways for a reason.  I was trying to give them more shelter from the wind and cold air and a small part of me hoped that the little ones would use the little door and the big one wouldn't be able to.

Kelly was already checking it out

I sealed the outside and the roof with wood sealer and I still want to add another piece of wood across the top of the doorways but I went back to working on the coop after I took these pictures.


The next day I put a piece of wood over the top half of the entry.  I decided (so far) not to cut the doors larger because the two smaller goats were able to get inside.  I'll wait to see if Jenny goes in later today.

You want me to do WHAT?

The goats never got better after the last vet visit so they had to come out again.

The vet said that they needed a series of three shots - EACH.  They said they could come back each time and I would pay for it, or they could leave the shots with me.

They showed me how to give the shots and then left on their merry way.

I'm suppose to do this?!

That needle is HUGE!

I can't even hear stories about a paper cut!  I nearly pass out every time I donate blood!  I can't even look at a tooth that's fallen out!

Today was the second shot.  It took us a few minutes to catch the goats and then Jennifer helped to hold their heads still while I grabbed on to their skin and gave them the shot.

It was horrible.  I started feeling queasy and wasn't even sure if I could do them all.

Carrie was the last one and she's never tried so hard to get away from me before we even gave her the shot. After the shot she wouldn't even come near me.  It broke my heart.

There is no way that I can give the third shot to them.  I need to find someone else to come out and do this.

And I thought goats were dumb...

Hurricanes

I suppose we experienced our first hurricane yesterday.  We're pretty far in from the shore so we didn't experience too much of what hit the coast but there were a few hours when the winds were pretty crazy.

Twice we ran outside in the storm to attempt to give the animals a little more shelter.

The first time we wrapped a tarp around the back of the chicken run and leaned a piece of plywood up against the box in the run in the hopes that the guinea would go under it and then have the wind blocked from three sides.

We also dragged a folding table and another piece of plywood over to the goats and dragged their houses closer together so that we could give a little shelter outside of their houses so they could stand up.

The second time we ran out to force the rooster and one of the chickens into the coop and to close the door and then to put a red heat lamp out for the guinea since they were all drenched.

From the looks of things this morning, the guinea didn't take advantage of the shelter...

The goats were dry and I'm sure warmer than those darn birds.  Carrie even looks fluffy this morning.

 I opened the coop for the chickens to come out since it's only very light rain today and I plugged the heat lamp back in (I'd unplugged it around midnight so it wouldn't start a fire while I was sleeping.)

I'm looking to see what stores are open today so that we can go get some higher protein feed and some sand to help absorb some of that nasty water/mud.

Goat stealing and pneumonia

We will probably never find out why the neighbors keep taking our animals, but it happen again. 

Johnathon came home one day and all three goats were missing.  He knew something was wrong because they don't leave the yard even if they get out of their pen so he went next door and found them.

They were locked in a pen that is about 20 feet by 15 feet, with 30 other goats.  He was hysterical because those goats are for meat and can be killed at any time and because the male goats were mounting our three girls.  He knows better than to call me when I'm at work but I heard something while I was teaching and checked my phone - two missed calls and seven texts from him.  I called back thinking he was dying and he told me what the problem was.

He managed to get them out of the pen and dragged and carried them back home to the pen. 

Over the next few days we built their pen higher and stronger to keep them in.

But within 24 hours the goats were all showing signs of illness.  Jenny was having coughing fits that lasted 30 seconds at a time.  Carrie had green snot and a cough and Kelly was also starting to cough.

My google searching said they had pneumonia.  Yet another illness that is deadly with goats. 

Other than having a vet come out or me having to inject them with antibiotics, my only choice was oral injections of some medicine I could get at the feed store.

Every day for five days I had to go catch the goats and force the syringe into their mouth.  Each day they got smarter and catching them became nearly impossible because they remembered all of my tricks so I was only able to get the medicine into Jenny and Kelly for three days.

Even with Carrie getting the medicine for five days, she wasn't showing signs of improvement so I finally had to call the vet.  They came out and diagnosed an upper respiratory infection in each of them and had to give each of them a shot.  I've never heard the goats scream the way they did when they got those shots, it was horrible to hear.  The vet said that the medicine does burn when it goes in but that they should only need one shot and they will be cleared up in a week.

The next day each of them had a HUGE (I'm talking baseball size - not exaggerating  where they'd gotten the shot, but I haven't heard very much coughing and they are are already eating better.  We spent an hour building the fence higher and now there is only one 10 foot section that is four feet tall, the rest is about 5.5 feet tall.

We don't want to get weeeet!

The goats have been getting out of their pen again...

The other day it was raining lightly when we got home... the goats were out, but by golly they didn't want to get wet!  Good thing our canopy was out...

And their shenanigans continue

The boys broke the original screen door to our mud room, several times, during our first 4 months in our home.

The original screen door

We were without a door for a month or two before I finally bought a pretty new screen door and installed it a few months ago.

Carrie had pushed through the screen on the bottom half of the door to get into the mud room awhile back.  I left it the way it was partly because I hadn't bought the tool to push the screen back into place, but also because I knew Carrie would just push through again.  The screen served it's purpose to keep bugs out, and Carrie would simply come into the mud room looking for treats, and then just walk back out when she was done.  Almost like a doggie door.

One day last week, the goats were out.  This isn't anything new, in fact we often will open the gate and let them out when we're working the yard.  I'd rather let them out, then to have them jump or climb out.  And once they're out, they typically go right back in when we open the gate or shake their food dishes.

I was done with my work outside, but the goats needed some more time to graze, so I headed inside.

Carrie followed me in, but I stopped her from coming into the house.

I sat at my computer and started working....

And then I heard a bang.  And a crash.  And a bigger thud.  I yelled and jumped up to run out to the mud room to see what they'd knocked off the shelves...

Are you kidding me?!?!?!

They literally ripped the door and the hinges from the frame!

I'm not sure which goat did it.  I am guessing that Kelly came in and tried to jump out the top screen and may have gotten stuck half way through.  Or maybe it was Jenny trying to get in, and not fitting so she just ripped the door off.

The only good news is that the screen isn't torn, so I will finally buy the tool to push the screen back into place, and once I replace the broken part of the door frame I can re-attach the door.  I'm going to be smart and buy a metal grate to cover the bottom of the door to keep them all out this time.

The long walk home

After living here for a year, we finally got down to the one restaurant in the small town next to us last week.

Chuckwagon Restaurant just sounds country doesn't it?

Johnathon ordered a burger that was larger than mine.  It not only had the typical burger patty, bun, lettuce, tomatoes, and onion, but it also had a sausage patty and a fried egg.

He ate almost the entire burger.

Jeremiah had a kids' burger and green beans.

After dinner the boys decided they wanted to walk home.  In fact they started to run home.

While it was along the main road through the town and there were cars going by, it's still out in the country so it's not too busy.

I drove along with them, pulling to the side of the road in front of them, waiting for them to run past me about a quarter mile, and then driving past them about a half mile and pulling over again.

They made it.

2.6 miles, running almost the entire way.  Laughing and smiling the whole time.

When they got back to the house, I had to drive past our driveway and make a u-turn to come back because of the median in the road.  This is what I saw when I pulled into the driveway: