Starting this new adventure has not been easy! We started out with two weathers. The one got really sick 2 days after we bought him, then got the other sick. The other one who got sick ended up dieing of floppy goat syndrome. We treated him with heavy pepto bismal, but he was just so weak he couldn't fight it. We lost him Easter morning. The first week of ever owning goats and we ended up with 2 very sick guys and loosing one. Felt like a goat mamma failure. The breeder was awesome through everything and came several times to check on them and give them antibiotics, whatever we needed. I think he felt so bad that he replaced the little weather we lost with Annabelle. She is a fawn colored doe with a little white down her side and top of her head. So now we have 1 soon to be weather and a little doe. We are happy, then a friend of ours has 3 does she is wanting to sell. She said she would give us a good deal to help our little ranch get off the ground! We go to pick her up mother's day and find out they want to give her to me for mother's day!! How awesome. She is so sweet and beautiful Her name is Millie. Now we have Jasper, Annabelle and Millie. Our kids LOVE the goat kids and my husband who was totally against goats has falling head over heals for these little babies...
Today was a really cold day, so I got a heat lamp hooked up in their barn so they could stay warm. What an adventure today. Lesson 1: always keep extra straw around. Lesson 2: always roof your barn even if it is almost summer!! The roof on the barn started leaking, because we were going to roof it this weekend, not knowing it was going to rain for hours today! So I go and feed them this morning and everything is fine, 2 hours later there is 2 inches of water in the bottom of the barn. Ugh so I get tarps and tarp the roof, while running back and forth checking on my daycare kids, while getting drenched... Luckily I have a wonderful father in law who went and got the babies fresh straw so they could get out of the wet. I brought them inside and dried them really well then put them under the heat lamp. So tonight they are in a heated barn. It is so cold out. Lesson 3: Laugh... Without laughter you will go nuts. I have learned more in the last 3 weeks then probably some learn in months. Now time to learn more about minerals, registering, and de-wormers...
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Hi Janel,
I have had a crash course in goats too. With my first herd it was within 2 months of when I got them... lost a doeling to a broken leg and one ended up having CAE so had to get rid of her. (No one else has ever had it here.)
Then I had a break from goats for a year and this time around I was doing fine until Mothers Day when I lost a buckling and then several days later had a sick doeling. The doeling I took to the vet and she is doing fine now. The buckling went from normal to terrible in 4 hours and I couldn't bring him back. He was going to go to someone as a pet/weed control because his testicle wasn't descending and he couldn't be a proper buck or a wether, so I made a financial livestock decision instead of a heart decision and opted not to take him to the vet. I shed a lot of tears over him. =(
Now I have some does who appear to be low on copper and we have lice... easy to take care of, but new experiences for me so it still makes me nervouse. =)
Anyway, just so you know, you're not alone! But hopefully you have gotten it all over with for a couple of years now!