Worming

This morning was worming day for the goats. I milked Collette early this morning then wormed her, her milk tonight went to the dogs. I will go back to using her milk tomorrow evening. I don't worry much about getting the wormer in the milk that I drink since the wormer that I use is used to worm people in third world countries.

The wormer that I use is Jeffers Ivermectin 1.87% Paste Wormer for Horses it is currently only $2.59 per tube and made in the USA. You also can get free shipping if you order $60 worth of Vet supplies from them, which is easy to do because they have so much really neat stuff at reasonable prices (I love Jeffers!). I use this wormer for the horses, the goats and the dogs.

I dose it at three times the horse dosage for my goats, so if the goat weighs 100 lbs. then I treat it like a 300 lb. horse. I hit them again in two weeks with a second dose for any worms that have hatched out since the first worming and this seems to take care of all of my worm problems. It also takes care of lice and mites if they are a problem.

I have been hurrying to get this post done because I wanted to get it in before tomorrow, in trying to blog everyday. However it is time to say "Good-bye" because the thunder is rolling outside and it is getting louder which means it is getting closer. We are under a Tornado Watch for tonight, so I hope to post again tomorrow, Lord willing!

Disbudding

Disbudding is the goat keeper's least favorite thing to do. But in fairness to the goats that we raise and to increase their value to both us and the people that may end up with them someday, they need to have their horns removed. It is a nasty job but someone has to do it.

Horns are dangerous for several reasons, but my main reason is that I want my goats to be safe around my grandchildren. Horns can also get easily caught in fences and goats do love to stick their heads into some strange places and at times I don't know how they will get their heads free even without horns.

So, my little Onyx and Jasper were dehorned on Tuesday morning. This process is called disbudding because it is the burning of the horn buds. They should be done as soon as the buds are clearly visible, this is at about two days old for bucklings and a week old for doelings.

The time got away from us because of all the things we had going on. We were way late in getting this done this year. They were two and a half weeks old which is nearly too late to do this successfully for a buckling.

The process consists of taking a very hot tube shaped iron and placing the horn nub right inside the tube and burning a circle around the horn base to destroy the horn root. We use the Rhinehart X-30 Dehorner that we bought online at Jeffers Livestock Supply.

We first place the kid in a box especially designed for this propose to shave all of the hair away from the horn area. Then when the iron is glowing red, I hold the kid's head still, while my husband applies the hot iron to the bud. He applies pressure in a circular pattern, clockwise, around the horn base while I count off 10 seconds.

When the iron is removed, I blow on the area to quickly cool it off. We then inspect the area to see if we have a perfect copper colored ring around the entire bud and to give the iron a chance to reheat before going to the next horn. If it isn't an even ring, we will come back later to even the ring out. When both sides are done we then burn or nudge the top of each horn bud with the hot iron.

This is a very stressful thing for the kids to go through, but they always return to play as soon as the are released from the box. So I am not sure that it is extremely painful for them. Goats have pretty hard and thick skulls. Usually they cry just as much about the shaving experience as they do for the burning but this year the babies didn't seem to mind being shaved. I think that the whole thing is harder on us than it is on them.

Jasper in the Box


Horn area being Shaved


Shaving Onyx


Copper Rings


All Done!


Back to Playtime.

Shocking

My new handy dandy Hot-Shot Power-Mite arrived from JeffersLivestock.com. It is like a electric cattle prod but it is compact and fits into your pocket. It looks like a stun gun or taser, but of course, only delivers a buzzing sound and a slight shock. It is used for close-up animal work with hogs and cattle. In case you missed my blog about my billy goat getting a little pushy and aggressive, he is the reason that I bought this little device.

I put it in my pocket and went to gather eggs in the goat/chicken shed. As usually, Cooter started his routine of chewing at my sleeves which is fine, then he started lightly pushing on me with his head.

He gradually increased his pushing and I slipped the Hot-Shot out of my pocket and applied it to his neck. He hollered and came back after me, mad as could be. I shocked him again on the neck and he yelled and came back again, this time he reared up and tried to hit me hard. I got him on his shoulder that time and he came back for more.

I was beginning to wonder who was going to win this battle, when I made good contact with the side of his belly and he bleated and ran away. He went on the other side of the building where he had to peek around the side to see me. He never came back and I was relieved because I didn't have much more fight in me.

When I went back out there to check on things after dark that night, he came right up to me to be petted but never once chewed on me or pushed on me. I was so happy that he wasn't afraid of me and that he didn't start his stuff with me again because I had totally forgotten to take the Hot-Shot with me.

I have been in the lot several times since this incident and he is a changed boy. He is not pushing on me at all now. It is amazing to me that he knew exactly what he was doing that he needed to stop doing.