Cooter's Adventure

The thing that you fear the most is that goats will learn that they can jump, climb or crawl under fences. All of my goats were very respectful of the electric fence until one day Collette discovered that she could crawl under the fence. Then because Paris didn't want to be separated from her best friend she learned to jump like a deer.

Cooter had never acquired this knowledge of escape until the bottom strand of the electric fence went missing. He found that he could just walk under the top strand without getting shocked. This was great news for him, he could visit all of the places that he had only dreamed about.

His first destination was to visit with the does in the barn stall, but alas, there was no way to get into the stall with them and no way to get into the grain either. So his next destination was to find out why all of those horses stood around those big round things all day long and fought for position.

The best way to get the information that you need if you are an athletic billy goat who does not know fear, is to just jump right into the middle of the action.

The horses were totally repulsed by this stinking, ugly, egotistical animal jumping right into the middle of their supper. All of the horses stepped away from the ring not knowing what to do. Buddy, (pictured above) who is quite fond of his food was the most repulsed of all and decided to take matters into his own hands.

My Husband told me that the horses would eventually snatch him up and give him a good shaking and might even injure him. I didn't think that they would bite into anything that smelled like that. I was wrong, Buddy, who is a big strong gelding, viciously grabbed him by the neck and shook him like a rag doll. Cooter didn't mind at all, he just went right back after Buddy thinking that he wanted to play. Cooter left a bad taste in Buddy's mouth it seems because he wouldn't do it again.

After several attempts to engage Buddy in play, Cooter got bored and left the hay ring and started singling out other horses to play with.

First he chose Dan, the alpha gelding, the herd leader and protector. Dan just totally ignored him, so he went after a younger male, Naylor. Naylor was intimidated by him and went for reinforcements.

The funniest part of all of this was that Angel was with him, growling at the horses that he was challenging. She tried being diplomatic about it and tried her best to talk to him about size and strength but he wouldn't listen, so she had to stand her ground, growl and threaten the horses about minding their manners.

Because at the end of the day, Cooter is still her responsibility after all, it is like being the body guard for a spoiled young prince.

Bone Chillin'

The weather forecast is nice for the next few days. These recent cold nights have been hard to adjust to. I am normally a polar bear. I really like cold weather, it may have something to do with hot flashes. Last winter we really saved on heating expenses but my poor DH nearly froze to death.

I got all of my green tomatoes picked before the freeze and I had to rush around to get my pool filter unhooked and drained. The wind was so strong and cold one day that my hot cup of coffee was just lukewarm by the time I got to the fire that my Husband had built to burn some stumps.

There I sat on a chunk of wood by the fire drinking a slightly warm cup of coffee. It just kind of ruined the whole affect. That wind not only ruined my coffee but it kept changing the direction of the sparks and smoke. My DH ended up having to set up two chunks of wood, one on each side of the fire for me to sit on and I kept having to get up and run to the other side. A very relaxing evening.

Some of my hens have stopped laying, I am only getting five eggs a day now. I also lost one of my Rhode Island Reds, we found her dead on the nest.

We sold Collette to a friend with good fence, so I will get to see her babies and still get to see her occasionally. My DH and I both sighed a big sigh of relief after we delivered her to her new home. Paris is still getting out once in awhile out of habit but I think that she will eventually stop.

Calico is still not liking her new living quarters inside the barn, she cries day and night. Her cries are sorrowful, mournful and loud, they are actually more of a wail than a cry. I thought that she would get over it eventually but I don't think she is going to. I tie Cooter up outside the goat lot and put her in with Paris when the weather is nice during the day, so it isn't like she is totally without companionship.

Naylor's eye still looks bad, the cloudiness is still there and he is still keeping it slightly closed but it isn't watering anymore. We have tapered off putting the medicines in it to once a day. He is still being such a good boy, most horses wouldn't let you get near them after what we have put him through. He always comes right to us and sometimes we don't even have to halter him.

Corneal Ulcer

While showing a horse to someone on Sunday afternoon, I noticed that several of the horses eyes were watering. One of them had quite a bit a pus in his eyes so I meandered down into the herd for a closer look. His eyes were fine but I started looking at other eyes and was shocked to find Naylor, our two year old, AQHA, solid bay gelding with a painful, runny and milky eye.

This looked very serious and we tried to get him in to see the Veterinarian on Monday but he wasn't available. On Tuesday morning we tried again to get him in to see our Vet and failed. So we called the new Vet who just opened a practice very close to where we live, she is just a young girl starting out and when we had called her once before her prices were too steep for us but we were desperate this time. She said that she could see him at 2:00.

She did a very thorough exam of his eye and diagnosed him with a corneal ulcer caused by an injury of some type, which she wanted to treat very aggressively. Very aggressively means that we have to keep him out of the sun or keep a fly mask on him and give him a shot every day plus put three different ointments in his eye twice per day and two of those ointments 4 to 6 times per day.

It wouldn't have been so hard if we could have put him in a stall and kept him here at the house but he had never been stalled and he wasn't having any part of it. He nearly tore the barn down. Naylor is a very quiet and gentle boy, my DH just got on him and rode off the very first time he was ridden but he didn't like being confined at all.

Since my Husband was going to be working all week, I didn't want to have to deal with him getting himself in trouble or hurt in the stall, so we stuck a fly mask on him and turned him back out with his herd. His herd doesn't want anything to do with him and treats him like he has cooties or worse.

They are savage, vicious and down right nasty to him. They bite him, kick him and chase him. He is totally confused and so pitiful, these were his best friends. We take the mask off of him at night and they are all happy to see him. Then the next day it's the same old battle.

This has been difficult for us, having to walk so far to get him in the dark and bring him back to the house. We have to twitch him to get him to hold his head still to put all that stuff in his eye. Tonight it was raining and cold, we drove to the top pasture and my DH had to walk out into the herd to find him, which isn't easy in the dark, he went right past him to another bay horse. Then he had to bring him back to me and the Blazer headlights to do the dirty deed.

What is shocking about the whole thing is that he never tries to get away from us when we come after him with a halter and lead rope. Sometimes he even sees us coming and walks to meet us. I don't understand why except that he loves to be petted and loved on, he doesn't exactly like having his eye messed with or getting a shot though. We have tried giving him some grain as a reward for his good behavior but he won't eat it, he just wants to get back to the herd after the loving and petting is over.

The Vet called to check on him yesterday evening and I didn't get her called back until this evening. I told her that we weren't seeing much improvement except that he doesn't act like it is hurting as much. She said that we wouldn't see much yet but that he should start keeping it open more, even if it does continue to water and look white. She said that it might even take a couple of months before all of the milkiness goes away.

I have to say that she impressed me, she is a very empathetic Doctor, her eye watered the whole time that she worked on Naylor's watery eye, plus she didn't charge us too much and that earns her a lot of points.