“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter
of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their
fellow men.”—Francis of Assisi
Oh taking a break from Jewelry blogging today. To me nothing is more shiny
than Jewelry than maybe perhaps a newborn baby goat.
My thirteen year old daughter has a small goat herd on our farm, she
started it in November 2011 with a billy goat (Billy Bob) she had asked for and
got for her birthday.
Over that summer she and her sister worked for our great neighbors dog
sitting their fur babies while she was working some long hours. Montana saved every
penny she earned and bought a couple nanny goats My girl paid for the wormer,
feed, medication, ect. all from her hard earned money. She got some more dough
for Christmas from her MiMa Instead of buying the newest electronic gadget or
makeup, clothes, and stuff the typical teenager would buy she added more goats
to her herd.
She has put them up at night, caught them when they escaped, learned how to
trim their hooves all by her self with the help of my best friend who taught her,
she caught on very quick.
In November 2012 she had her first baby goat that she named winter, and shortly
after came Eve (born on December 23rd)
Again Montana surpassed all my
expectations of a 13 year old, she put the momma's and babies up in the barn
every night until they were big enough to stay in the pasture with the herd. We
do have a bad coyote problem here.
Well a couple days ago another one of her Nanny goats had baby twins, just
the most precious thing in the world.
It was unseasonable cold here in Tennessee, we had a
light snow and they were born at night, we immediate put them in the barn, but
by the next day one of the baby's temp had dropped to 90.1. A normal goat temp
should be 101-103. We submersed him in a warm water bath followed by hot towels
and a blow dryer. We managed after 3 hours to get his temp up to 98.1. I was
amazed to see my delicate daughter taking a goat temp by the rectal method. She
is such the trooper. The baby boy she named Stripe died despite our best
efforts. Mamma and baby girl 2 were still in the barn and seemed to be doing
ok, later that night the second baby was not looking good. Me being the crazy
lady I am, I let the Nanny and baby in the house,
daughter checked the temp
rectally again (My super trooper) and it was 100.3 mama seemed to be taking
good care of the baby girl, but I stayed up until 1:30AM checking and finally
went to sleep, Then about 6AM I awoke to a heartbreaking baaahhing sound from
the bathroom. the poor baby goat darlin girl had passed. I guess sometimes it's
just not meant to be. I am so proud of my daughter, she continues to
amaze me every day, and I feel so blessed to have this life.
