Today it was the turn of the goats to be wormed and vaccinated. Rounding them up was easy (!!) as they were all in the barn anyway and we had food at the ready just in case! Now goats, unlike sheep, don’t really hide their pain so for the half hour we were worming and vaccinating, it did rather sound like mass murder was being committed. The worst screams were often at the ‘weighing' stage where all we did was place them in slings under our hanging scales. Sometimes we feel with goats that it is the ‘indignation’ rather than the pain that causes their outbursts. We can also say with true honesty that our Boers are the noisiest goats we have ever known. Bless!!! As with the sheep yesterday, getting the goats in for their jabs and drenching (name given for administering liquid medication), was also an opportunity for a general health check. We were pleased to see that the kids’ weight gains were all pretty consistent both across the six of them and within their triplet groups. The danger with triplets can often be that one becomes either weaker or stronger than the other two. Neithrith is the smallest of the lot (at 9.4kg) but his average weight gain is 0.16kg a day, in keeping with Terelle who herself is 10kg. Kanard is the biggest at 11.2 but whilst his overall % weight gain since birth is 267 %, Neilrith’s is 294%. At this stage, as long as all the kids are gaining weight at more or less at the same rate then we have no reason to worry.
Other checks included teeth (all good, and in some cases lovely and sharp!!!), feet, ears, skin and back ends (as in how clean they are). On the whole all the kids passed with flying colours.
The next few weeks are pretty crucial. The times in between first and second vaccinations can be tricky. As the kids' immune systems develop, a balance has to be struck between being exposed just a little, but not too much, to a fair few nasty bugs and bacteria, whilst all the time waiting for the vaccinations to take effect and give them full cover. Bizarrely, at times, it can be the strongest kids (or lambs) that get struck down the worst as their efforts go into mass body growth rather than their immune systems.
Fingers (and everything else) remain crossed, alongside continuing vigilance!