The Joy of Almond

At the beginning of January we treated Almond for meningeal worm. She rebounded and seemed to be back on track. Then in Feburary she went down again. This time heavy with pregnancy. We called around to many vets and got all kinds of suggestions, I treated her again for meningeal worm, and also pregnancy toxemia. In my heart I knew she had neither of these, I knew that she was weak from the meningeal worm and that the added weight of the pregnancy was not allowing her to heal.

This is how Almond would move by herself

The thing was that Almond was not due to kid for another month. So my only option was to get her up everyday, get her up and get her moving. At first when I helped her up she could stand a little bit on her own, then as the days went by that became more and more difficult. And she could not walk without my help, with my help she was all over the place. Instead of walking Almond became quite good at dragging herself around, this worried me as her udders were coming into contact with manure and I did not want to have the added worry of treating mastitis. From the straw and hay in the goat pen her belly became scratched. However her spirits were high and she never lost her personality.

The morning that she went into labor, I panicked. We have delivered many babies and all without the help of a vet, but this time I was scared. So we immediately called the vet, it took an hour and then he was at the farm. Let me digress for a moment. With the drought that we experienced having birthing problems was a possible side effect. You see the plant becomes quite nutrient dense trying to send all of it's energy up to the flower, the plants only goal is to reproduce. This makes hay pretty rich, we have spoken with several farmers who have had all sorts of problems this year.

Two doelings (Rose and Violet)

Looking back I struggle with whether we should have called the vet or not. The thing is that we don't farm like others, we like to let the animals go through their own process, I did not make this clear to the vet. He told me he was just going to move a leg that was blocking the kid from being born, but he ended up pulling the kid and before I knew it both kids were pulled, and not given to Almond. You see when a baby is born mom usually smells it and cleans it off. Now I don't know for sure why she ended up rejecting her kids but pulling the kids one after another and not allowing Almond her process sure could be the reason.

Because Almond did not want her kids, they became mine. As much as I love farming, bottle feeding is not what I like best. Oh sure it is cute and fun at first but then the kids follow you around eating your clothes, bumping you to see if you have milk, I would much rather the moms raise their own kids.

However not having kids to raise Almond was able to focus on healing. Within a couple of days Almond was able to stand up on her own, then within a week she was taking steps. Then she was all over the place, in the barn. I was milking her twice and day, in the barn, then giving her milk to her babies. Then Almond stopped pushing herself. She had all she needed and apparently felt no need to venture of of the barn. So I pushed her, I wanted to start milking her in the milk-house just outside of the barn. Now 2 months later she is walking all over the place. She is not fully recovered and she still falls, but she is a long way from where we were in February.

This picture was taken a few days ago.

Almond's next milestone will be going out of pasture with the other goats. She wants to but I am so afraid that she will get caught in the electrical netting that I am not ready to put her out. At the moment we are working on fencing an area with non-electric fencing so that she can go there and I won't have to worry so much.

Our famous kid........

Kid1 has found herself on page 17 of the premier issue of FROM SCRATCH.

Butchering a bull

Starting over with our farm has left our freezer pretty empty. Last fall we started looking around for where to buy a whole or a half of beef, boy is it expensive. I am not saying it is not worth it but we could not afford $1500 for a processed half.

We then had another idea we would look for a steer (neutered) that was old enough for us to keep him for a few months then we would butcher him ourselves. We looked but finding steer that were raised up to our standards became quite difficult. Then we found a place close by that was selling Scottish highlander bulls, 100% grass-fed.

Shaggy this fall while on breeding duty

Many people say that meat from a bull (not neutered) will be tough or have a strong unpleasant flavor. However I read several comments that this is not true of Dexters or Scottish Highlanders. So we bought a 2+ year old highlander bull, put him in with our Dexter cow. A kind of two for one deal, that is if he bred her and if the meat tasted the way we were hoping.

Last weekend we slaughtered the bull, which went okay. This is the first time we have done all the work ourselves. There are many things that if we had would have made the job easier, like a tractor. But we made due with what we had.

Then we let the quarters hang in a lean-to type building. The weather has been beyond cold so the butchering needed to get done, and that is what we started yesterday.

We have 3 more quarters to process, one is in the kitchen at this very moment- warming up. We have always done the slaughtering on the farm, with help, but never have we butchered a cow. To say it has been a learning experience would be an understatement.  We have a couple books that have been helpful Whole Beast Butchery and Basic Butchering. And having butchered some lambs and a goat has been somewhat helpful. After today the two back quarters will be cut, packaged, and placed in the freezer.

Meningeal Worm Update

I just wanted to give a quick update on Almond. She is doing amazing! Yesterday I let her and the other girls outside to roam around. I can tell that she is still tender on her back legs but she is recovering. When researching meningeal worm and goats some said that even if the treatment works the goat might still have some type of limp. Others said that their goat had a limp that eventually went away.

Almond and the girls making their way out of the barn

This is a good shot of the hair loss on her neck.

Not the best picture but you can see that she walks with a swagger.

Treating Meningeal Worm

It has been five days since I started treating Almond. Today I gave her the last of the morning dewormer. After reading many things on the internet and talking with friends the treatment plan that I started with was 5 days of Safeguard for goats at a dose of 1cc per 7 pounds and 3 days of Equimax at a double-ish dose.

Equimax is a horse dewormer that is a combination of ivermectin/praziquante. Goats have a very fast metabolism so it is important to get a high dose into them so that some actually goes to work. The Equimax tube is like a drench gun, it has notches on it that allows you to set it to the dosage you want. Every other notch is marked for 220 pounds of horse. I was not sure the exact dosage that I should have given some said 3 times the dose while others said 2 times. So the first day I gave 3 times the second day I gave 1 dose and the third day I gave double to dose.

Almond trying to get up

I could have given the 3 doses of Equimax first and then started with the Safeguard, however I had Safeguard at home. What I did was give Safeguard in the morning and Equimax at night.

Here you can see her back legs are not cooperating

She is really trying to stand. This picture gives you a look at the hair loss on her neck.

I have kept detailed notes about what I gave her each day and how she looked. Sometimes when you are in the middle of it all you think you will remember what you did, and you might, but I know that I wont. I wanted to be able to look back in a year or two and know exactly what I did.

And up- you can see that she has not lost any weight. One of the symptoms of Meningeal is loss of appetite we have not see that with Almond which makes us hope that we caught it early enough.