UPDATE, on Yoda.
Karen managed to trim his back hooves last night, yippeeeee! She has been giving Yoda a little extra attention since I last wrote, extra petting, calm voice reassurance. Every evening the 3 get about a cup of Noble Goat feed in a common dish which they go crazy over. Well, last...
Thanks for the replies and well wishes.
I built the stand but couldn't complete the feeder/head restraint as I had to get back to work. I did bring the stand home and the "boys" were up on it in a matter of seconds. The boys view my dgf as "Momma". So every evening she sits on their bench and...
A little update.
I did some more research on several goat forums and google.
It seems like a milking stand is most helpful, (no, I'm not milking wethers lol). But several posters commented that not only do they milk on the stand but also trim hooves. The goats are munching on "nummies" and are...
Thanks for the replies.
I'm sure it's going to take time and persistence. We might try to isolate him from the others during hoof trimming and ply him with some grapes (they all LOVE grapes). As you know when they're all together, goats offer waayyy more help than needed.
Tonight during...
Thanks for taking time to field my questions.
We have 3 Nigerian Dwarf wethers all about a year old. After a few mistakes in the beginning, we thought we were on the right track,,, wrong! Apparently, due to too much Alfalfa, Yoda developed urinary calculi and had to be rushed to the vet for a...
Please think again about the beautiful singing coyotes.
We just lost our 2.5 yr. old RIR "Cinnamon", less than 3 hrs. ago to a coyote. We were standing not 20' away talking about our goats. Even if we had a weapon shouldered and scanning the edge of the woods it happened in less than 3 seconds...
First off, I'm not a peafowl owner, (girlfriend has 10 hens) so pretty much I do like birds. I'm an OTR trucker and am all over the country. One place I try to stop at is at Dunnigan,Ca., a real small "town" with a giant grain facility. Good safe/quiet place to sleep.
One evening I heard what...
Not experienced enough to help other than cheer you on. Of course food and water first AND isolation from your flock, don't want to bring all that nastiness in. BOL!
How high are your ceilings? Our roosts are about 5' from the ground with an 8' high ceiling so their heads aren't even close. Allow them enough room so they don't conk their heads when flapping up there or during squabbles. Our girls go for the "highest ground" they can get to.
I'm guessing...
First of all, no chicken loss = good. But you already knew that.
I've never actually lived in Ca. or the desert but have spent some considerable time there. There's some sort of ground squirrel that is tenacious in their digging. I've observed holes dug through hard packed gravel and marveled at...
I might be speaking "out of school" here, but 2 days? We've been into chickens for only a year, one thing we discovered, chickens don't like changes in much of anything. Your guys/girls are going through a major change in almost everything. Give them some time to get used to you and their new...
Nice work, you've got some skills to say the least. Cabinet maker by chance?
The scorpions and spiders should fear your girls, don't know if they are bad for a chicken to eat. Any bug within pecking range of our girls meets their doom quickly. I'm sure some of the Az. people can provide info...
Yep, pretty much just throw it on the ground, they don't really seem to mind. When they get oranges sliced in half I do have to take sharp stick and pin the orange to the ground. Otherwise it gets turned over and they lose interest.