A near run thing …

 

 A shadow hanging over the Huon

The Battle of Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s rule in France, but it could quite easily have been a different story. The delicate balance between victory and defeat was ultimately resolved in Wellington's favour by the timely arrival of reinforcements. In the aftermath of the battle the Iron Duke is quoted as saying that it had been “the nearest run thing you ever saw”.

While not quite on a scale of the Napoleonic wars, last week saw us engaged in a mighty struggle to save the life of one of our little goat kids. You will recall that our first experience of breeding livestock on the farm was the arrival on Friday 5 July of our little kids, who we named Oreo and Milo. Despite being born outside in the paddock in the middle of winter, the two of them appeared to be thriving for the first few days.

When they were about 3 days old we noticed Oreo was limping and not really looking particularly well. At first we thought he would be fine, but the next day he seemed worse and was shivering badly. We made the decision to move the twins and their mother, Jess, into our shed where we could keep a close eye on them and remove them from the ambit of the wedge-tailed eagles that seemed to be particularly active in the vicinity of our paddocks.

 Milo not understanding his brothers dress sense

It soon became clear that Oreo needed supplementary feeding, so we bought the necessary equipment and some powdered milk for baby goats and set about the task of feeding him. This proved to be a little more difficult than anticipated because he simply would not take a bottle. In the end I had to hold him while Cath used a syringe to feed him.  After a couple of days it was clear that whatever we were doing was not enough as he remained listless and unable to walk properly. In desperation we moved him into the house, dressed him in a dog coat borrowed from our neighbours and used our dog crate to keep him safe and close to the fire.  For the first time in a very long time, we had to get up in the middle of the night to feed a baby.

 

 

Inside by the fire

 A visit to the vet ensued where we discovered Oreo probably had fallen victim to “joint ill”. A quick internet search will tell you that joint ill in young goats can include swollen and painful joints, lameness, fever, and reluctance to move. It turned out that young Oreo had the lot, and we were instructed to give the poor lad twice daily penicillin injections. Luckily he started to respond to the warmth, the feeding and the antibiotics and soon we felt confident enough to return him to his mother and brother during the daytime while keeping him warm and cosy inside at night. A few days later and he was back full time in the shed, leaping about with with his brother Milo as though his dramatic first two weeks were already a distant memory.

 Back in the shed and learning to eat celery

Yesterday we released mother and twins back into the paddock. It was a bit of a relief to do so as keeping their stable clean required multiple poop scoops and piles of fresh straw each day. Who every thought that such small beings could produce so much manure for the garden? Even more problematic was trying to keep Jess in food. She munched through every shred of celery we had in the garden, as well as mounds of spinach, cabbage and broccoli leaves. All this was on top the goat pellets and the fresh hay.

 

 Back in the paddock

 

Clover keeping a close eye from a height

Anyway, it was a great thrill to see Oreo and Milo zooming around the paddock this afternoon and meeting their aunts, Clover and Cocoa. But it could quite easily have been a very different story because it was indeed a very near run thing …