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.
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.
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