Marygold update.

Well we brought Marygold's body to the vet on Monday. He did an autopsy on her. He asked if we wanted to watch. Uh....no. Dave did watch, I couldn't. If it would have been someone else's animal I would have since things like that fascinate me. (no, not weird, just always wanted to be a vet.)

The long and the short of it is that she had an underlying stomach problem from birth. The food was not traveling through her belly in a timely manner so it was all collecting in her second stomach. He took out over 3 liters of food in one stomach! So she didn't have any fat on her at all the protect her. It made her immune system weak, so when the coccidia parasite settled in her, she didn't stand a chance.

What threw us off, was that Tomi had the coccidia parasite when he came here and he had bad case of diarreah. Marygold had no diarreah. The vet told us that the coccidiosis causes the intestines to go nuts and can tie them up. That's what happened to Marygold.

That's so sad, she must have been in pain.

Well that's about it for now. I'm not too much in the blogging mood these days, but I figured that I should update on Marygold.

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Sadness....

I woke up this morning to a dead doeling.

Yesterday it rained and rained plus we had lots of thunder and lightning, so before going to the farmer's market I made sure that the goats were inside. Everyone seemed fine. Marygold wasn't particularly lively, but all my goats are sluggish in the rain. So I didn't think too much of it. I checked on them that afternoon and everyone was still the same.

Then after supper our pastor and his family came over for a visit. He's a goat farmer too. He said that Marygold seemed to be limping. So I figured that was the reason for her "sitting"down. I brought her out of her pen and made her walk around. No limp. Honestly, she seemed fine.

Then after they left I checked on her again. Her belly seemed a bit hard, so I figured she might need a bit of help burping. So I massaged her belly. Then I checked her eye lids. They were rather pale so since it was rather late, I figured that I'd deworm her in the morning. But her poop was fine.

Then at 4am I woke up and had an awful feeling that she was gone. I figured I was just nuts and tried to go back to sleep, but it kept bugging me. I finally fell asleep. Then this morning I quickly went to milk and check up on her.

I was devastated when I saw that she had passed in the night. When I got "the feeling" I should have gotten up and checked on her.

We are bringing her to the vet tomorrow for an autopsy. My main concern is that something is contagious.

So until tomorrow I'll just have to keep wondering.

Have a Blessed day.

Mydnight Marygold

I can't believe that summer is almost gone. Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm going to be the big 44!! Scary.

Since I was a child I considered summer gone after my birthday. So sayonara summer!

We've had a new addition to Spring Peeper Farm for a while now, I just never got a chance to blog her. Please put your hands together and give a warm welcome to Two by Two Mydnight Marygold.

Marygold!

After alot of thinking and praying, we realized that Febe is not getting any younger and with all the udder problems she's had this year, I believe that this fall might be her last breeding. Then she'll be going into retirement.

The Horn!

We had the vet over here this week to cut off Tomi's horn (That was funny, we had to put him

under. I've never seen a goat drool.) So while the vet was here, he took out his ultrasound machine and checked out Febe's udder. Well, to put it in Dave's terms, she's blown a gasket. She has lumps in her udder. While they aren't dangerous, they are causing blood in her milk at times.

So considering all this, we decided that we needed to get another goat. She's from our goat friend's farm. I know them well and I know that the mom is a great milker and their herd is healthy.

Cindi doesn't like her too much. Febe actually seems to like her. It's weird, since Febe doesn't like anyone. Cindi didn't like all the attention she was getting.

Ummm... Excuse me! I want some attention too!

It's so strange how all goats have such different personalities. I think that's what I love about goats.

Monday we're all going to a family farm day. I can't wait. I'll make sure I post all the details.

Now that all the rain is gone, we are now having a small drought. We can't win. It's so hot here that it's hard to do anything. The garden's kaput. Even though I've been watering and regularly giving a manure tea to the greenhouse, I'm only getting teeny tiny tomatoes. It's sad. The only things that are doing kinda well in the garden's are the sunflowers and the beets. The pumpkin plants are a total of 4 inches tall. Woopie!

It's all so discouraging.

The extension on the house is going well. We are only one week behind. Not bad considering it's only been going on for 3 weeks.

Well It's bed time.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa