The Front Porch Swing

[Caitlin_VT]

So sorry about your goat

 

[tdhenson86]

Tell her that if they do get into some grain...look for signs of dull-headedness or blindness. if she is at all worried, then give them a shot of B1 (thiamine) it will not hurt them and it may save ther lives. should probably have some on hand at all times. The dosage for a 75lb goat was 5cc of the 100 strength (there is evidently a 50 strength, too)

So sorry to hear about him.

Thanks for the advice for anyone with goats.

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

WHAT??? Really???

yes! and they have been broody ever since- give or take a few weeks

On the subject of the goats-- keep baking soda on hand. It saved my goats when they ravaged all the chicken coops last year- I was completely distraught when I thought I would loose all of them but, after a few days they were all ok.

 

[smccuen]

Yesterday was a bad day.

We came home from work to find Sam (goat) dead. Just laying in the goat house on his side, dead. And he had been perfectly healthy! In fact I was thrilled with how healthy they were looking…not worried at all except for the heat, which wasn’t as bad this week. And the husband and I had already made plans to enclose part of the goat house and put in a cheap window unit for really bad days (because we are not real farmers and they are pets)

We took the other two goat’s temperatures (normal), called the vet and immediately took him for a Necropsy. Verdict was he was an extremely healthy goat who broke into the chicken house and ate too much chicken feed and went into “grain overload” which will cause goat polio encephalitis (thiamine deficiency, cant process it?) which will cause them to go into seizures, go blind and DIE. He had gotten into the chicken house yesterday.

I knew that chicken food was bad for goats, I just got it confused with the “no grain for wethers” thing where they get stopped up. I didn’t know that it could flat out kill them.

There is a saying that you learn more from Failure than you do from success. I guess I am learning the hard way.

Polioencephalomalacia....so as not to confuse it with the human poliomyelitis...like you said, due to a deficiency of thiamine and treatable with thiamine injection if caught early...symptoms and signs include blindness, lack of appetite, tremors, grinding the teeth, drooling, jaw clenching, seizures, pressing the head against a firm surface (as if to relieve muscle tension) and opisthotonos which is a rigid hyperextension of the spinal column....So sorry for the heartache. Poor thing. Thank you for sharing the warning with us, though.

 

[pysankigirl]

Polioencephalomalacia....so as not to confuse it with the human poliomyelitis...like you said, due to a deficiency of thiamine and treatable with thiamine injection if caught early...symptoms and signs include blindness, lack of appetite, tremors, grinding the teeth, drooling, jaw clenching, seizures, pressing the head against a firm surface (as if to relieve muscle tension) and opisthotonos which is a rigid hyperextension of the spinal column....So sorry for the heartache. Poor thing. Thank you for sharing the warning with us, though.

yeah...what she said...

I think I had stopped with the baking soda because it had gotten wet and they never seemed to eat it anyway. I guess now I know why I need to start back up with it.

 

[sonew123]

Oh how horrible Im so sorry Laura!!!!

 

[babymakes6]

On a better note, I have not lost any more birds.

But now my kittens are disappearing.

Of course, my favorite one was the first to go and we haven't found her anywhere. They are only 5 weeks old, so they are not moving around a lot yet. Two out of the four are gone. The second one disappeared yesterday and Sophia found it this morning when she left the ducks and geese out. Maggie is a Golden Retriever and she likes to carry things around. She does not kill anything, but if it is dead she carries it everywhere until I take it and bury it. There were no marks on the kitten at all, so it really has me confused. What would cause kittens to just die? I don't know if it got trapped somewhere, but if so it wasn't for long-a few hours at the most.

Olivia's Rex rabbit had bunnies last Thursday and they are all doing well! One solid black, one black with white belly, and one white with black spots on face and down it's spine. Both parents are like that, but have a lot more black. This baby will look like this:

 

[babymakes6]

It looks like Maggie IS the culprit after all.

The children just found her with one of the kittens in her mouth and they rescued it. She will be penned up until they are big enough to defend themselves (unless we are out there) and I will try to teach her to leave them alone. She is almost ten years old and has never hurt anything before, except a turkey that flew into her kennel several years ago. It invaded her space, though. She runs loose all the time with the turkeys, ducks, and geese. I will be watching her very closely from now on.

 

[flocksalot]

On a better note, I have not lost any more birds. But now my kittens are disappearing. Of course, my favorite one was the first to go and we haven't found her anywhere. They are only 5 weeks old, so they are not moving around a lot yet. Two out of the four are gone. The second one disappeared yesterday and Sophia found it this morning when she left the ducks and geese out. Maggie is a Golden Retriever and she likes to carry things around. She does not kill anything, but if it is dead she carries it everywhere until I take it and bury it. There were no marks on the kitten at all, so it really has me confused. What would cause kittens to just die? I don't know if it got trapped somewhere, but if so it wasn't for long-a few hours at the most.

Olivia's Rex rabbit had bunnies last Thursday and they are all doing well! One solid black, one black with white belly, and one white with black spots on face and down it's spine. Both parents are like that, but have a lot more black. This baby will look like this:

It looks like your bunny is wearing a bunny suit with buttons up the back. It's so cute!

Sorry about your kitties. Maybe she thought she was helping?

 

[pysankigirl]

It looks like Maggie IS the culprit after all.

The children just found her with one of the kittens in her mouth and they rescued it. She will be penned up until they are big enough to defend themselves (unless we are out there) and I will try to teach her to leave them alone. She is almost ten years old and has never hurt anything before, except a turkey that flew into her kennel several years ago. It invaded her space, though. She runs loose all the time with the turkeys, ducks, and geese. I will be watching her very closely from now on.

OH oops....well...BAD DOG!!!

is the kitten okay?