Our little ladies had to get disbudded last night – and although it might sound naughty, and you could technically say it is a horny matter, it’s quite traumatic, really. Goats with horns are dangerous to themselves and others, so it is normal practice to remove the horn buds when they are young to prevent them from growing. You can read more about it here.
We have a wonderful vet, who came to our house last night to take care of this for us. She fit us in at the last moment, even though she is leaving for a conference next week. She’s awesome, and has been keeping goats for 35 years, so she really understands them. Because our girls are a month old, she decided to put them under for the procedure. That’s a pretty scary thing to watch for first-time owners, but we were confident because of our vet. The process involves a very hot disbudding iron, so it cauterizes automatically.
Everyone did fine, although, goats do not care for the sensation of being drunk after coming out of the anesthesia! The good doctor applied some Blu-Kote (a germicidal, fungicidal wound dressing) to the spots to prevent infection, and stayed with us as they regained consciousness to insure they were OK. They were feeling punky when we left them last night around midnight, but this morning, everyone was very happy to see me, and I think more importantly, their bottles! Trying to get photos of three hungry goat girls is no easy task, but I managed, somehow. The purple stain is from the Blu-Kote, and their little wounds may look alarming, but we’ve been assured that’s normal. 🙂
It is a gorgeous day here today – about 65 degrees Fahrenheit – so I took the ladies out for a walk on the leash. I can’t wait to get their outdoor pen set up for them, hopefully this weekend. Of course, it’s about to get cold again in the next few days, so that’s disappointing. But today, we enjoyed the sunshine! Heidi does the best on a leash out of the three girls, but walking a goat on a leash isn’t anything like an obedience-trained dog. You control your destination with the dog; with goats, you sort of suggest the direction you’d like to go, but you need to let them think they made that decision.
Gidget really enjoyed bouncing around, and you can hear Winter and Heidi calling out to us from the barn:
I didn’t catch Winter’s walk on video, but she will tell you about it here:
We are introducing our 3 1/2 year old son to the ladies tonight – he has no idea that we have them yet, so it’s a big surprise. I told the ladies about it earlier today, and Heidi seemed to speak for them all with her enthusiastic tail-wagging:
I’m very excited to see what he thinks. I’ll fill you in on how their introductions go later!
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