Monday, January 4, 2016

Hoof trimming adventure

Wow, I'm terrible at this.  Really really terrible. Update on the cats, they're still here!  And, after much effort, they are little snugglers.  Its hard to pet 3 cats at the same time sometimes...But super duper fun!  I've been wondering if they were doing their job and catching mice and last week I saw the white cat with one mouse, then two days later I saw her with ANOTHER!!  I was way too excited when I saw her with the first one!

The kids are fantastic!!  The other day (Saturday) we used our new goat chute and trimmed their hooves, which I was totally freaked out about but I learned all I could and after that the best learning is just to jump in and do it. So we did!  While they were in the chute we wormed them too, that was exciting...I couldn't believe how bad some of their hooves were, it was ridiculous!!  Their hoof walls were growing together and some were twisted around, I can't believe it!  Craziness!!

First of all, here is the setup...and a pretty good view of the barn...its so big, its wonderful!  I kinda wish their were walls and stuff, but I guess that will come over time. We have a LOT of plans!

So...The kids were all held in the little panel rounded up on the right, then their only way out was through the goat chute and then into their regular area.  We put the chute up on some boards to bring it up off the ground and make it mobile, now hubby can move it with the tractor and it doesn't have to stay there all the time, as its kind of in the middle of everything.

Here is a picture of me trimming...thanks to hubby. At first I wasn't sure, but its a good memory of my first trimming. I'm sure we have many years of it coming.

Hubby kept seeing my red fingernails and think that I was bleeding...it was kinda funny!  P.s. I poked my finger with the shears, they're VERY sharp, and bled a little bit, and then I scratched my hand with the shears too, but other than that, there was very little crying from all involved!  The goats cooperated really well, and those that I thought would freak out...didn't, which made me super happy! I don't like crying (me and especially the goats). You'll see in the above picture that we added some blue cushioning to the top so that it was more comfortable for the goats when they rested against the top part.

Here are Rosie's hooves before...sooooooo awful!!!

Dirty, true, but they're way too long and the hoof walls grew together, which is really bad. I don't know how she lived with it. I imagine it was only a matter of time before things went bad, so I think we caught it at the right time. Yay!

And this is after!!!  Definitely not perfect, but MUCH MUCH better!!

Here's a good example of what I mean and how it should kinda really look...

I think the white middle part and the white outside are supposed to be the same, but this is about as good as I could do right now, and their feet were dry and dirty. I'm pretty darn proud of it though!! The outside of the hoof (you can kind of see the white-ish line), that's the hoof wall and then there's the middle inside white-ish part and that's kind of like the quick. Really they're like fingernails so its not that big of a deal, but it really felt like it!!!  It feels really good to get their hooves done. And to worm them, we got some Safeguard oral dewormer and a cute little syringe thing but no needles. Put about 3ccs in there and put it down their mouths, that was hard, but it had to be done.  And they still seem to love me after all that so I'm VERY happy!! : )

I love my goats so much!  They're seriously the funnest animals ever!  Sometimes we let them run free in the barn and they do the cutest little runs and jumps and its awesome!  Sometimes they get really excited and run into each other...gosh its adorable!!!  I can't wait to have little goats too. We talked to our goat friends and our girls should be ready to have a sleepover in February, so we'll have Mr. Buck come visit for a month or so and hopefully have some babies 5 months later!  Woo hoo!!!

Well, I need to start getting ready for work, I guess...sigh.
For your viewing pleasure, and for those that I meant to send a Christmas card to but didn't...(you know who you are) here is the front of my Christmas card this year!  This is Hyacinth!

Have a great day!!
cee
(I miss you so much deeee)