Wednesday 14th June 2017
Settling in??
Up until yesterday, the new Anglo Nubians had been kept inside and separate from the Boers under ‘quarantine’. As soon as we could, we got a faecal egg count done and thankfully the results showed a very low worm count. This news, plus being satisfied that after several days on their own, they have not shown any signs of ill-health, meant that yesterday afternoon, we decided to let them out and so properly meet the Boers. As you can see from the photo, they very quickly found the best browsing and we are happy to report that the meet and greet was not too bad either. Garlic, as the matriarch amongst the Boers, asserted her authority pretty quickly which is to be expected – she gave several low head-butt warnings. Onion and Pepper were aware of them but made no physical contact.
As we are feeding outside, we simply spaced all the truggs quite far apart and at teatime there was no more than the usual low level pushing and shoving. Sorrel is quite a greedy goat and she was more than happy to get her nose stuck into whatever trugg was available. The kids followed her lead but both yesterday and today, there was a fair bit of sharing going on, certainly amongst the kids.
Today we did not allow the goats back in the 4-acre as we had it sprayed to kill of the docks – in fact no stock can go back for 7 days now. This means that we have sheep, goats and alpacas sharing the top 3-acre and the double field shelter BUT, the newbies seemed to cope with that too...
We have still been separating them at night but the good news is that both last night and tonight, all the goats were back in the barn and settled before we arrived to officially shut Sorrel and the kids in their own stall.
A good start which we hope will continue.
The only slight niggle was Pepper who yesterday morning was rather poorly with a temperature of 41.2 degrees (normal is 38/39). After a shot of anti-inflammatory and antibiotics, he recovered incredibly quickly but we were a little concerned for him about the cause. We have also heard Coriander coughing today, she coughed when she was inside too but not enough for us to worry then. Goats do cough at times. Something as simple as different hay and straw from the stuff they are used to, can be a cause. As today she has been outside a lot more however, we may have expected her cough to be less so, as with anything that is not acute, we will keep an eye for a day or so…
Today we did not allow the goats back in the 4-acre as we had it sprayed to kill of the docks – in fact no stock can go back for 7 days now. This means that we have sheep, goats and alpacas sharing the top 3-acre and the double field shelter BUT, the newbies seemed to cope with that too...
We have still been separating them at night but the good news is that both last night and tonight, all the goats were back in the barn and settled before we arrived to officially shut Sorrel and the kids in their own stall.
A good start which we hope will continue.
The only slight niggle was Pepper who yesterday morning was rather poorly with a temperature of 41.2 degrees (normal is 38/39). After a shot of anti-inflammatory and antibiotics, he recovered incredibly quickly but we were a little concerned for him about the cause. We have also heard Coriander coughing today, she coughed when she was inside too but not enough for us to worry then. Goats do cough at times. Something as simple as different hay and straw from the stuff they are used to, can be a cause. As today she has been outside a lot more however, we may have expected her cough to be less so, as with anything that is not acute, we will keep an eye for a day or so…