Last Saturday, Hubby went out to do chores, and found our buck laying dead in the barn. Just…dead. There was no sign of illness or injury; no blood, pus, mucous, cud, diarrhea, lumps, bumps, bruises…nothing. He was found laying on his side in the straw, but there was no sign that he’d had convulsions or anything. No indication at all of what might have happened. The buck was a little on the skinny side, but had been eating and drinking normally as of the night before, perky and being a nuisance when the boys were being fed.
I immediately called our breeder to ask if he had any ideas. He asked us about our worming program. I had postponed worming, because I picked up the dewormer after the does had been bred; the directions on the package indicated it wasn’t to be used in pregnant cattle (there are never instructions for goats, alas), and I couldn’t find any information about whether or not it might be safe in goats. He also asked about supplementation. We give a bit of fortified goat ration, and a blue cobalt salt block, but the breeder informed me that this probably isn’t sufficient – our area is deficient in selenium, and the goats probably also need more copper and maybe calcium than the ration would contain. Between those things and the extreme cold (it was -35 that night), the breeder indicated he might have just died due to poor condition. Of course, he could be fine on all counts and just have dropped dead of a heart attack or aneurysm, too, and there’s no way to know for sure, short of a post-mortem, which I’m not willing to pay for at this point – we’ll need that money to buy a new buck.
I have this nagging feeling like we might have killed our awesome boy through ignorance and neglect, though, and we’re both pretty cut up about it. He was such a docile and friendly buck, and we’re breeding for attitude, so he was perfect in that regard. He’d really become a pet, as we knew we planned to keep him more or less forever. We’d gotten completely attached.
On Saturday, I finally sucked it up and tried eating goat cheese. With Baby M having such a violent and extended allergic reaction when I eat any cow products, I had been too chicken to try any alternatives. I have been working up my courage since before Christmas. So I made up a pizza on a gluten-free crust with home-made goat ricotta, mushrooms, onions, pineapple, and peppers. It was absolutely divine, after six months without a bite of cheese.
Baby M did not react at all. I would have been dancing a happy dance if not for the black cloud hanging over our heads with the loss of the buck.
I’ve been finding a way to work cheese into pretty much every meal since…
Tuesday, while I was out doing chores in the girls’ yard, I got this creepy feeling like I was being watched. I glanced around at the girls, who should have all had their heads in their grain buckets; the three older does were all looking to the north, ignoring their grain entirely. I looked around, too, and didn’t see anything…until it moved. A huge coyote, slinking out of a derelict building that is not at all far from the girls’ pen. I’m certain it was a coyote and not a wolf, but it was a seriously large coyote. And bold! It sat down in front of the building and just watched us. I charged that general direction, yelling and flapping my arms; the coyote moved a few steps and sat down again. I grabbed a chunk of snow and threw it…if my aim had been better, I might have had better effect – but the coyote just moved a few more steps before sitting down again. Eventually, it wandered off, but the girls and I were all spooked.
After chores, I got the dogs, and went exploring around the area. The coyote had been into the compost pile; Hubby knew something had been digging in there, but had blamed Poppy, or thought maybe it was a skunk. There were pretty well-established trails in and out of the bush, suggesting this critter has been hanging around for a while. I am not sure what our next course of action should be. We could try to trap or shoot the coyote, but I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. There are still all the foxes, plus plenty of other coyotes, waiting to take this one’s place. I am not so worried about the goats, especially since they go in the barn at night, but the cats are at risk, and the chickens are pretty vulnerable. The snow has effectively reduced my five foot fences to about three feet – even the non-drifted areas are up well past my knees, and the snow around the goat and chicken yards is packed fairly solidly from us and the critters walking on it. My biggest worry is when the goat kids come. The goat yard is easily approached from the bush, and a kid would be pretty tempting for a hungry coyote. I haven’t seen the coyote since that day, but we know it’s still hanging around.
There has been so much piling up that it’s almost hard to tackle writing a blog post about it. However, in short, it’s been a rollercoaster of a week – we’ve been down (way down) about the loss of our buck, up about the possibility of me being able to eat cheese again, and worried about that stupid coyote. Bleh. I’d rather things were boring…
Wow girl, that’s alot on your plate in so many ways..
So first, congrats on being able to eat cheese!! that’s for sure the postive.
As for the goat, well you covered a number of things that it could have been and they are certainly valid, I can’t remember if you are growing your own hay or buying it?
IF its your own land, consider putting out for a soil test and working on improving the land itself, each year I do a bit more, and at least for me, not always the typical lime, I had one year that was a molassies spray year, and this year, all the pastures will be sprayed with diluted whole raw milk
I am sorry at your loss, I know that when we are attached that its very hard when it seems fine one day and gone at the next.
As for the coyote (almost sounds like a coy-cross from the size), well it would depend on what is happening, I have had a coyote pair that has my farm in their range and they have never bothered my lambs or livestock, (unlike the big bad fox) and so I never bothered them, this past year, the area got taken over by a mated set of coy-wolvies and they are making themselves known in the area and in that case, something did need to be done..
So the best advice I have is two fold, take your dogs out and have them pee mark the fence line you don’t want him to cross, even consider asking hubby to do the same if its not to cold out.
Second would be ask around for who is the local that will come and hunt or trap that big boy if he turns out to be a cross the line kind.
Best of luck on whatever you decide its never a easy choice is it..
I wish you the very best in finding a lovely new buck for your farm and hope that with time your grief will get better, and do at least have his offspring to look forward to..
FG
Well, I could start hauling the .22 with me for chores, but that seems like such a pain in the butt. I’m not real likely to see the coyote again, I don’t think; in retrospect, we are coming up with lots of signs that it’s been hanging around for quite some time without being spotted. It hasn’t bugged the goats or chickens…yet…but then again, neither did the fox, until it did, if you know what I mean.
I’ve already been around with the dogs, as far out as I can comfortably get without snowshoes. We’ve had over four feet of snow this winter, so it’s near-impossible to get off the beaten paths.
Hay – we buy it. We’ve gotten a supplement that should correct some of the issues, if we could just convince the stupid goats to eat it…they’re picking their crumbles out of the supplement powder, then leaving their vitamins…
It might be worth getting the hay tested, so that you know just what you need supplement, in the end it does save me money, as long as you are buying from the same hay fields/supplier so you really only need to do it once to get a base line..
I agree, hualing the 22 is a pain, far enough on the snow, we are getting yet another dump out here, and I hear you on the snow shoes..
As for the supplement powder and vitamins, been there, my vet told me to buy feed molasses from the feed store and drizzle like maybe a tbsp on and mix it all together so that the powders would stick to the feed, and mine at least woud lick their pans clean after I started doing that..
when it was just one or two goats, I didn’t mind doing it daily but after I got upward of six, I started making and mixing a five gallon pail and just kept in the house with a lid snapped on to keep the hounds out of it and would make a couple days worth at a time.
I bought some dry molasses, and my goats won’t have any of that. I might try some liquid stuff to see if they think differently of that. Picky boogers
What kind of supplement powder is best for goats? I have some cattle mineral supplement, but not sure how safe it is for goats. We lost our two bucks about a month ago. One was certainly old, but the other was 9 months old. He had been sick over the summer, and had been past that by several months. I think he was just generally weak, and I suspect, in retrospect as well, that he was deficient.
Diana, the supplement that was recommended to me was originally formulated for cattle. It has vitamins A, E, and D, as well as some minerals, particularly copper and selenium. You may or may not need selenium – depends if your area is deficient or not. A local large animal vet would probably know. You need to be careful, though, if you have other critters – some of those minerals (especially copper, I think) are toxic to sheep and alpacas. You might also look into deworming. I had no idea that worms could be fatal to goats.
Oh yeah, worms can be fatal. We do deworm. I really hate the idea of giving them the stuff, but one goat my husband brought home had them so bad she had the swelling in her jaw. I had to worm her 3 or 4 times to get that taken care of, and she was like a different girl after that. The ones that I lost had both been wormed several times, so I tend to rule that out in their deaths.
Hmm. Well, check into those supplements – it’s worth noting that the stuff I got (on the recommendation of a breeder) is primarily vitamins, rather than minerals…it was special-ordered through a vet, and fairly pricey. I wish I had more to offer, but I’m still on that learning curve, myself…
Was getting my hay today for my critters and I remembered that my hay guy would get me different hay for when I had the goats, and that when I only had the sheep, he changed me to a different hay and then once I got the horse, he moved me to a different cut again..
So I asked him about that, and he said, that there is “cow” hay, and then there is horse hay and that from what he can tell with the goat folks he sells to, that while the meat goats do fine on the cow hay, that the milking goats, they don’t do very well on the “cow” hay but do ok on the same cut that he sells as horse hay. He has a number of hay pastures and he seeds them a bit different and he said the cuts/timing also make a difference.
When I bought the farm, my pastures where done for cows, and I have spent a goodly number of years now frost seeding in the spring to add in a better sheep feeding pasture for the big pasture. Such a simple thing that might make a difference in overall health/milking/kidding.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/info_hay.htm
The joy of farming! Those of us who have done it can relate, sympathize, and understand your frustration, grief etc. etc. As for your coyote visitors, I would recommend that you may need to start going after it/them with the intent to get rid of it/them. They simply want to get at your livestock and they will be vigilant at it until they succeed, they are relentless. If there is a group of them, they will lure your dogs, especially females, away from the yard and attack them. In our farming experience, we learned that we needed to get them before they got into our yard and got our critters. If you have seen one, there will always be more. You may need to carry the .22 and actually use it. It is one of the facts of life of living in the country and raising animals, there will be predators and sooner or later they will attack. So you may need to attack first. Hope all goes well with your farming in 2013.
Thank you, Gloria