The goat kids are doing great too. They are all eating pellet and hay like champs. The goats, kids and pyrs are all in the same pasture and get along famously. The pyrs were taught from day one not to play with the kids, so they will let them jump on their backs and let them zip around like crazy with so much patience. We're really pleased. Hopefully when the rain stops we can get back out and open up the pasture in back. The winter grass is coming in but it's terribly muddy from all the rain. When it dries up a bit we'll reintroduce the goats to the donkeys again, along with Dru and Darla. But for now they're in a seperate pasture until the kids get some size on them. I would swear we are living in Seattle these days...
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Hooray!
We picked up the girls on Saturday just south of Montgomery. Matt Holmes, DVM and his wife Sam started Sunny South Great Pyrenees over ten years ago. Our experience was an absolute pleasure. Sam took us for a tour of the property, where we were greeted by her two wonderful females, Polly (the mother of our litter) and Duchess, along with Dandy (papa bear LOL). All three are beautiful and had the best dispositions. Dandy is ENORMOUS! We were able to see Duchess' new litter, they are three weeks old. What a brew! And several of Polly's litter were still there romping around waiting for their new owners to pick them up or to be shipped.
Dru and Darla girls are doing great (if you don't get the reference to the names, you must not be a Buffy fan). They slept on the car trip home and have quickly adapted to their new environment. They play non-stop. We are getting them accustomed to the smells and sounds of the goats, donkeys and our other dogs. Their play area is between our nursery and pasture so they get lots of exposure, while being safely behind the fencing. Our other dogs are happily interacting with them, although River wants to play a little harder than they are ready for but we only put them together when we can monitor. They are 14 and 15 pounds right now and growing like weeds.
Victoria Secret and Pebbles are due tomorrow and Wednesday, so we should have new kid pictures shortly. They are hanging out in the nursery at the moment waiting for the big day!
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We've had lots going on around here lately. Some good, some not so good. On the good -- The girls are ready to POP any day now, they are doing very well and we are really excited. The nursery is fresh and clean and Dan even added the rocking chair I had as a little girl out there for them to play on. He's planning to build some play areas too since we've relocated the original one down to the new goat house. The pasture in that area was completed last week and its ready for seeding, we were so thrilled when the bobcat arrived. It looks awesome out there now with everything cleared. It's hard to imagine what it used to look like with all the overgrown brush and trees.
For the not so good news (with a happy ending), on the 20th we received a knock at the door around 7am. It was our neighbor Steve. 3 large dogs, 2 of them theirs, had somehow gotten through our fencing and attacked our Sammy viciously. The rest of the herd, donkeys included, ran to the top of the hill to safety, but Sammy was on the ground looking lifeless. Dan ran to get him, fearing the worst, but by some miracle Sammy stood up on his own for a moment. Dan scooped him up, the neighbor got the dogs out, we wrapped him in a towel and jumped in the car and headed to Doc Ellison's. Sammy was in deep shock, bleeding pretty heavily and his breathing was labored. We didn't think he'd make it, but we were going to do our best to give him every chance.
It took awhile to get Sammy stabalized but they got fluids in him quickly, probios, etc and shaved the area around his neck and head that were bleeding to see what we were deailng with. They determined that the ear had been completely detatched from the cartilidge and should be removed. Doc Ellison did the surgery that day after she felt it was safe to put him under anesthesia (goats do not handle it well in general - not to mention all he was going through).
Despite the fact that a pit bull and a large lab were trying to tear him into pieces, our Sammy pulled through his surgery. Doc Ellison was amazed that with all the damage they caused it appeared all of it would be exterior. He could live with one ear. The ear drum was still there. They'd punctured an eye muscle but the eye looked like it was OK, albeit swollen shut. (He can move his eye around in the weirdest ways right now)
She kept Sammy for a week and that Friday we brought him home. He had to stay indoors, so we made a room for him in the bathroom. The wound covered the whole side of his head, and there was little skin left to try to pull together with stitches, so it was very open where the ear had been. We gave him antibiotic shots 2x per day, eye ointment and topical spray on the wound to help the skin granulate.
Days later, it seemed worse. The smell was horrid. We took him back. Much of the skin had become necrotic, so Doc gave him a little gas and removed all of the dead skin. We had to do that a few times with him over the next week but by the following week all of the wound had healthy tissue surrounding it. You could literally see his ear drum, his eye muscles and part of his skull bone now. BUT now we're on the road to recovery. The wound is finally starting to heal.
Sammy is the most potty trained goat you'd ever meet. He bleats when he needs to go out and if I don't hear him in time he raises cane until I clean up his bed. He cracks me up (except at 4am LOL). He's ready to be a goat again now we can tell. His spirits are up, he's waking me up every morning for pellet, eating, drinking, bein a pain in the neck and doing all those goatly things they do. We are thrilled. He should be back withi his herd by the time the new kids arrive.
Our acreage is completely fenced, but we've made sure everything is as tight as it can be. It seems if a dog wants to get in, they will just find a way. We've decided to invest in two Great Pyrenees to run with the herd. They are 7 weeks old right now, we'll be picking them up this week. Two sisters from an excellent breeder outside Montgomery. We will work with the girls to train them to guard the herd. Our goats and donkeys are already accustomed to our other dogs because we've worked with them so much, so I think it should be a relatively smooth transition. Stay tuned for more on that later.
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