Oh you guys I feel terribly. My bad horse chased my La Mancha who is approximately 3 months pregnant. He ran her hard, I thought he was going to trample her and kill her. I was all the way across the farm & could not get there in time to help her. So he chased her half way across the pasture until she cut out to the side and he went on by.
When I got to her I saw a spot of blood on her lady parts. Later a tiny bit more came, just barely enough to sort of coat the edge of her vagina but never enough to drip out of that makes sense.
I didn't take her to the vet to get checked out because I felt like going for a ride in the truck would just stress her out more. I put her up in the barn on a nice fluffy bed of shavings. She acts fine and no more blood has come out (this was maybe 2 hours ago now).
Right after it happened she went back out on the pasture to graze while I got her a stall ready. Now she is in the barn resting. Will she certainly miscarry? Is there a chance she could keep her baby(s)? I am so upset about it...I no longer have enough pasture to keep the horses separated from the goats & this is a real problem. I don't know what to do about the horse-goat issue. Is there anything else I can do for the mama goat to help keep her from miscarrying?
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I currently have 9 Nigerian does, 1 mini mancha and 1 full La Mancha (the one who got chased) 2 Nigerian bucks. the does are currently taking up 2 pastures because of one doeling who was weaned off her mom but still wants to nurse her. I am drying off that doe currently so will have all the does back in the same pasture shortly.
This horse has a history of very occasionally deciding to terrorize one of my does. He does not do it to the bucks because they aren't afraid of him. He is pals with the bucks. He will do this to any of the girls & last year he went after one of the Nigerian does but I was nearby and yelled at him and he stopped. I thought I had identified the situation that caused it and eliminated it and there had been peace for many months until this happened.
Anyway...without rambling forever I have too many does & can't trust him with any of them. The good news is they all get penned up at night for their own safety so I have been turning the horses out on the front pastures at night when the girls aren't there. It is more work to move them 2x a day so they are in another pasture before the does get turned out, but it is what it is.
I also put mine in the barn at kidding time & agree they do fine in much smaller area, in fact my lazy girls would be thrilled to pieces if they could lay in the shade and have me deliver hay to them lol. But I can't afford it and also philosophically want them living off the land as much as possible. I do supplement whenever they need it but the bulk of their diet is from grazing/browsing.
Juliana, have you considered separating only her? Goats really do not *need* that much room. When I expressed that I felt badly that mine don't have a bigger space (they had come from a large farm), a friend gestured to her own goats and reminded me that they spend most of their time in the same area. When mine are due, I keep them inside and honestly didn't give it a second thought. I also kept them inside with the babies for the first two weeks because we live in a rainy climate.
Well...this is the only update I have: The doe who was chased never passed anything or bled more than the one little spot I saw on her right after the incident. She still tested pregnant with Biopryn almost 3 weeks later but I asked the vet about it and if he's right she could still test pregnant even if she had a dead fetus in there.
But all things considered, it seems hopeful that the babies are okay, since she would likely have passed something if she had truly miscarried, right? I kept her in the barn for at least 24 hrs after the fact so I could see if anything happened. The vet said the only way to know was to wait two more months (not the answer I was hoping for!!)
After agonizing over the horses....I have decided to keep them still. The one who did this particular thing is half blind and half lame and I am literally the only thing between him and the meat packer. So, I am doing musical farm to the extreme so that he does not have contact with the does anymore which is kinda crazy but the only thing I can think of to do at this point.
I'm sorry, Juliana! I was in the same situation with two horses. I finally traded the younger horse to a farm for two llamas they didn't want. The old horse chased the llamas around, so I had to separate them, which didn't make anyone very happy. He was in his late 20s, and had to be euthanized after developing neurological disease. The female llama is wonderful with the smaller animals, but the wethered male llama has a bad habit of chasing my Babydoll Southdown sheep and my ducks, so the llamas have their own separate barn and paddock. The does have their own little barn and paddock, and the bucks have their own little barn and paddock. It's like running the UN some days. It sounds like it might be best for all your animals if you can re-home the horses in a good place. I hope your doe keeps her pregnancy and has a healthy, uneventful kidding.
What a tough call!! I feel for you, Juliana!! Hope you can get things worked out, and that your girls keeps her babies.
Well, she never bled more than that tiny bit and she didn't pass anything for the rest of the day yesterday. I put her up in the barn last night with a super cushy bed of shavings although that plan backfired because the my group of NDs was so mad at being left out in the night pen that I think they hollered all night long & she probably didn't get any rest anyway.
I am now faced with a very tough decision of what to do about the horses. I have had periods where I wouldn't pasture them with the goats because Duke will chase them, but I had gradually been reintroducing them and I thought we had the problem licked. There hasn't been an issue in probably 6 months and now suddenly this. This horse has been pastured with my goats for years and although he has chased them a few times it was never even remotely as serious as this. This horse is not just outright mean, he is pals with my buck Miyagi and they play together...so it's never been a simple situation
I have ten acres divided into about four pastures, and without writing a book about the logistics of my farm it is almost impossible to keep the goats and the horses permanently separate. Especially when we flood, which happens every year. Obviously the horses won't be with any goats from now on but it is going to be a huge strain. I am seriously considering asking the lady who gave the horses to me to take them back.
That is upsetting because I don't take rehoming any animal lightly...but the deal is that the goats are making me money and making me happy and the horses and costing me money and my children have totally lost interest in them so they just sit in the pasture and I have to do all the work of taking care of them and now this.
We've inherited 100 acres in GA that we hope to move to in the next few years, it would be easy to keep them separate there. I am thinking of asking my friend who gave me these horses to take them back temporarily until I can retire them in GA
That does sound scary, but what's done is done. If something was damaged, there isn't anything you can do about it now. Goats are pretty resilient animals though, so maybe she'll be okay. Let us know what happens.
You might think about creating a temporary pen or sub-dividing the pasture with temporary fencing to keep the horses and goats separate.