Thumped

Why is it that it always takes you so long to get used to things when they change. My dear Husband built a large, heavy, sturdy nesting box for our hens. It actually contains three nice big nests. But it didn't take long before we realized that we had hung it in the wrong place, that wrong place being right amongst the chicken roosts. The nests became really nasty very quickly.

So, my DH finally got around to moving the thing. He moved it to another wall inside the goat/chicken shed. It is now right inside the door and hung a little bit higher than it was. That little bit higher is right above eye level.

I knew that it was now in a dangerous place if I wasn't really paying attention when I came through the door. I had several close calls where I glanced up right before I walked into it.

But my luck finally ran out and the corner of the thing smacked me right in the hairline of my forehead. I bounced back a couple of steps then staggered to the window and grabbed a handful of window sill to steady myself.

I moved my other hand away from my forehead where it had landed instinctively and I felt something wet. I was just certain that I had busted my head wide open and was bleeding profusely but it turned out just to be dog slobbers from where Angel had licked my hand when I walked into the shed.

I survived somehow with just a small dent in my skull and it still hurts when I move my eyebrows. I have refused to go back into the shed since then. There are just too many unpleasant memories for me there now.

I have always loved my goat/chicken shed but now it scares me. You would think that once you banged your head into something like that, you would never forget it and it would never happen again. But I know myself better than that. It takes more than a dented skull to make me remember anything, it takes time and lots of it. Once that nest box has hung there for 3 or 4 years, I will never run into it again.

New Problem

Not a great development today, Miracle keeps collapsing, like she is passing out or just falling to sleep suddenly. She gets up occasionally but it sleeping most of the time. She will get up to eat then collapse before she gets done. We are also having a hard time waking her up at times.

The good news is that she is taking a bottle very well now, so that simplifies things quite a bit. We are just letting her sleep until we see her up then give her a bottle and help her lay down without falling.

Miracle

I thought that the names Sapphire and Topaz were cute for twins, but I just have to change Topaz' name to Miracle, I have no choice. She survived the whole twin experience and that is just amazing in itself but surviving what she went through in the last couple of days is nothing short of a miracle.

She is so much better it is just miraculous. She is walking and nursing on her own. She can stand up by herself but she is having problems laying down, we have to help her with that.

She was so bad Friday morning when my DH went to work that he had really given up hope. A couple hours later I heard some noise, went to check it out and she was sitting up. She had no muscle control just two hours earlier, her little head was just dangling when we tried and failed to feed her.

Now she was struggling to stand on her feet and I had a problem, she was flopping around all over the barn and was going to injure herself. So all I could do was just stay with her and protect her as much as I could.

Finally she wore herself out and went to sleep, I ran in the house and called my husband in a panic, he was just floored when I told him what she was doing. Next I called my Son to come and get hay out of the loft and build her a padded cell.

When I hung up with my Son and looked back out she was standing and looking at me, I was more than shocked. As soon as she stood up Dandee started talking to her and she started towards her mother, when she got to the gate I just opened it up and let her in. I stayed right beside her to steady her but she went right to that udder and made an immediate connection, I couldn't believe it!!

My Husband told me later on when I told him on the phone that she had walked to her mother and nursed, that he had come very close to just putting her down Thursday night.

She has continued to make progress all day. We can't leave her with her mother and sister, of course, so we are having to take her into their stall every two hours to nurse, then put her back in her padded cell. We are not completely out of the woods yet but things are starting to look much brighter.

Limp but Alert

Topaz survived the night! She had been totally stiff all over but now she is limp. She can't hold her head up and she can't suck now. But she is still swallowing well when I squirt the goat's milk in. I always start out with some nutri-drench before each feeding.

She nickered at my DH twice last night, that is an improvement. She had stopped nickering all together. One eye looks really bad from rubbing on the straw while seizuring, but we are praying it isn't damaged too badly. I must admit that I didn't think she would survive the night, I know the Vet didn't.

Seizures

Topaz is having one seizure after another but I have been able to get some nutri-drench and a little milk in her, she actually sucked a bottle between seizures.

We have to give her another steroid shot tonight and in the morning. She is still alert, has pink gums and startles at noises. But the Vet doesn't give her much of a chance.

Head Trauma

The Vet says that Topaz has head trauma, which was what I was afraid of, he thinks that either the mare was having a hard time keeping track of both of them and stepped on her or the other foal kicked her in the head.

He put her on steroids and said that she has no infections and is not dehydrated, but we had to separate her and I am going to have to bottle feed her, if she survives.

The Vet said that this is only the sixth set of twins that he has seen in his career. It will be such shame to loose Topaz to a head injury when she has beat the odds on everything else.