Our TN Adventure

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Our Boy Bruschi

On February 12th we lost our beloved wether Bruschi.

Bruschi

When we first decided to get goats we knew we would need a buck for breeding. In the dairy goat world bucks (boy goats) live separate from the girls most of the time. Since they live separate and goats are herd animals we knew we needed to get our buck a friend.

In comes Bruschi. He is what is called a wether. He is a boy goat but can't have any babies.

Bruschi is a cross between a Nubian and a LaMancha. He is just the sweetest boy ever. We loved all of his silly antics and we lovingly called him monster often, since he was the biggest goat we had here but was always causing mischief.

Every morning he would push his way out the door to get fed in the morning. Then when it was time to go back in he would just stand there and not move until you gave him a hug. He would always stand real still and put his head next to yours and lean his chin on your shoulder.

As hard as we try sometimes things don't work out how we would like or want. I noticed Bruschi's stool wasn't looking normal. When this happens I bring a sample into the vet and she checks it under the microscope to see what is wrong. In this case it was stomach worms. Normally we just go ahead and worm them and recheck in two weeks. We went ahead and did this. His new fecal sample showed he still had worms and we needed to dose him again. Which we did.

Over the span of 5 weeks we worked closely with our vet to find out and discuss what was wrong and what action we should take to make him better. He was doing okay for the first 3 weeks and then completely went down hill. I brought him to the vet to be seen along with another fecal. His worm load was gone but the effects from shedding all those worms had taken a toll on his body. He was severely anemic and dehydrated. The vet did all she could and we brought him home. From there he continued to go down hill and passed away that evening. I take some comfort in knowing he didn't pass away alone. Me, Hailey & Drew were all with him, showing him our love and talking to him.

Later that evening I called Pat & Katie who I bought Bruschi from and told them what happened. Pat told me about a place that I could bring Bruschi and have what's called a necropsy (autopsy for an animal) done on him which would tell us exactly what happened. Pat was kind enough to go with me the next day to show me where I needed to go and what I needed to do. They pathologist called me before I even got home with the findings which were exactly was the vet had said. Severe dehydration and severe anemia due to a overload of worms.

It's been over 2 weeks now and I still miss him terribly. I still look for him when I see the herd out in the big pasture. I know he is in a better place now and has some peace.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my sweet Bruschi.

Bruschi being silly with his best buddy Brady

This is how Bruschi greeted me every morning

Bruschi relaxing with Hailey & I

My absolute favorite picture

Bruschi as a baby, isn't he so cute

Hailey's first time meeting Bruschi, they became best friends

I will never forget this special boy and I will miss him everyday.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Maddie's Babies are Here!!!

It has been super busy here and I'm sure you all know by now that Maddie had here babies but I want to write about it because I was just so happy about being there when it happened.

You see I missed both Whimsey & Priscilla's births. They decided they didn't need me and had their babies on their own. Thankfully I found them both just after delivery and was able to help clean up the babies.

Maddie started her labor on Saturday morning, February 2nd at 10:15am. She had a large amount of discharge so we went ahead and moved her into the birthing pen. For the next hour or so she paced around, dug into the shavings and coming over to me for reassuring rubs and pats that everything was going to be alright since this was her first delivery.

Around 11:30am she started pushing. She was doing really well. Her first baby presented perfectly, its two front legs first and then head. Maddie did a great job delivering it and then paying attention to the baby to get it cleaned off. While cleaning off the first baby she ended up delivering her second baby a few minutes later with no issues too.

Maddie did a wonderful job and knew right away what she needed to do to clean her babies off. She was so sweet talking to them and nudging them so she could clean them really good.

Now the exciting part comes in, checking the babies. We have 2 beautiful GIRLS!!!

I was so excited to have 2 baby girls since at this time we already had 3 boys & 2 girls from the other mamas.

Maddie cleaning off her baby girls, just minutes old.

The babies were doing great and figured how to stand up pretty quick and nurse too.

Baby girls all nice and dry learning to stand

Maddie is a wonderful mother and takes very good care of her baby girls. We have decided to name them Lana & Luna. Lana is the white & brown one and her name means light and Luna is the brown one with the spots, her name means moon.

We already have found a home for these two precious girls and I am so excited to say that they are going together!!! It makes me so happy that they are going to be able to stay together because they have such a strong bond already.

Luna & Lana relaxing at a week old.

I can't wait to see these girls grow, hopefully their new owner will stay in touch and I will get to see them grow into beautiful mature does like I know they will be.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Priscilla's Babies are Here Too!!!

Priscilla's babies are here!!!

Priscilla's triplets, 1 day old

Priscilla decided to make me wait this year for her babies and delivered a day late. She was originally due on January 21st. She ended up delivering on January 22nd, just like Whimsey.

So we went from no babies to 5 babies in one day.

Whimsey had her babies a little before 8:00 on the morning. After helping her clean up the babies, make sure they are doing well and nursing and making sure Whimsey was okay I finally got back up to the house around 1:30 in the afternoon. I was able to have some lunch and do the dishes.

I thought it was best at 3:00pm to check on Whimsey & her babies once more before the kids got home from school. As I'm heading down to the barn I hear a loud cry. Of course I take off running the rest of the way and when I got down there I looked through the window and there was Priscilla cleaning off all 3 of her babies.

I thought I was shocked that morning, I was even more shocked to see 3 healthy babies all doing well and a big pile of SPOTS.

This was our first year breeding with Welker, our spotted buck, so we didn't know what his babies would look like. I was so happy and excited to see all the spots and colors Priscilla & Welker's babies had.

Here are the babies they day they were born.

Priscilla's baby girl already looking to nurse at just hours old

Priscilla's baby girl just hours old

Priscilla's baby boy just hours old

They are all doing well now. Priscilla's brown with white splash girl, who we named Daisy, was the strongest. She stood and nursed first and is super independent. She was also the first to venture outside of the barn.

Priscilla's other girl, Itty Bitty is the black with white spots and is belted, is doing great. We named her Itty Bitty because she is just that, a tiny girl. She is little but she has lots of spunk and loves to play with her brother & sister and the other babies. We did have to help her get her ears to fold the right way, I think its from being squished inside her mama, but that worked out fine and they now fold the way they were suppose to.

Priscilla's brown with moonspots boy, who we named Duncan, is just a sweetie. He too loves to go outside. Usually he and Daisy will run outside and then back into the barn. They both love to play together.

This is not Priscilla's first time having babies so I have no worry about her being a good mama. She is wonderful with her babies, very protective, watches them great and makes sure all of the get to nurse.

Daisy, 4 days old

Itty Bitty, 6 days old

Duncan, 4 days old

I'm sure we will find great homes for these babies and if not I guess I'll just have to keep them :)

Whimsey's Babies are Here!!

Whimsey with her boys a few hours after giving birth

Whimsey was due on January 19th and she ended up having her babies on the 22nd. I was able to be present during the births last year and wanted to be again this year so once her due date arrived I made sure to check on her every few hours even through the night.

The night of January 21st she did fine through the middle of the night. I did notice that she had some discharge but she wasn't doing any of the usual things goats do before giving birth, like "digging" or "nesting" on the ground or stretching.

So the morning of January 22nd, I checked her at 6:15am and saw no changes in her so off I went to drive the kids to school. Once I came back I went down to do the morning chores of feeding all the animals.

I always look in the window to see where everyone is before I open the door and there she was with both babies on the barn floor and her being a great mama cleaning them up.

I was in SHOCK, LOL.

I helped her clean the off and moved mama and babies into the birthing pen so she could be alone with them to learn how to be a mother, since this was her first time, and to bond with her babies.

This was when I found out what she had, 2 BOYS.

Whimsey's boys only a few hours old

Whimsey is a natural at being a mother and loves her babies and takes very good care of them. The boys are doing so well. They love attention and being held. They really like just snuggling with someone while being held.

They are already running and jumping around in the barn. They have only taken a few steps outside of the barn, they are a little weary of the outside world still.

Whimsey's Boy #1 who we name Allen

Whimsey's Boy #2 who we name Sam

I really hope we can find wonderful homes for these two sweet boys.

We can't forget to mention that Brady is the sire (daddy) to these handsome boys.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

WOW, Time is Flying - 9 Months old now

Chuck & Tbone turned 9 months old a couple of weeks ago.

They are growing so fast. They are becoming big boys!!!

Jamie feeding the boys.

See in the picture how big they are? Feeding them makes me a little nervous because once they see you coming with the bucket they get excited and try to beat you to the trough.

We measured them on the 15th, when they turned 9 months old.

Chuck 630lbs
Tbone 530lbs

Chuck & Tbone eating breakfast

Tbone eating

Chuck eating

I was really hoping one of them would be ready by spring but i don't think so since Jamie wants them to be at least 1000lbs before we send one of them off to the butcher.

I guess we will just have to wait and see. I will be measuring them again in April since that will be when they turn a year old.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Wow!! They have Grown!!

Lil Pig and Big Pig are now 6 months old and my have they grown!!

Jamie with the girls, 6 months old.

The girls are doing so well. They are super friendly and love to have someone give them rubs. I am doing much better and not afraid with these two pigs as I know what I can expect from them this time.

They really love people. They go crazy running around anytime they see us coming down to the barns.

The past month we have been feeding them soaked corn and I'm sure that is helping with their growth. The funniest thing with these two girls though are they LOVE to eat hay. We keep putting hay in their pen for their bedding and to help with the mud because it has been raining for a week straight here and they keep eating it.