This springs babies.... (PICS)

[Kathyp]

i had thought about raising meat goats.  there is a market for them here.  after i found out what a PIA they are, i gave up the idea.  one of our 4H moms was doing it.  coyotes got them. they climbed out of fences.  they climbed on everything, including the cars.  our market here is to the Mexican farm workers.  she had to post a NO BUTCHERING sign on here place because when she sold the goats they'd kill them and gut them on the spot.  pretty messy  :-) i decided that they were way more work than they were worth.

now i'm looking at miniature cattle!

[Cindi]

Mici, aw, how did you cow break her spine?  That is dreadful.  Tell us what happened.

Kathy, you are full of stories too.  Your posts are interesting to say the least.  Goats are a pain no doubt.  I have had them in years gone by and have no interest, too much work.

We had a goat that when I would feed the horses their grains, I would carry the bucket.  That goat was a nuisance for sure.  If she was not in her stall and she managed to get close enough to get her head into the bucket as I was carrying it, it was the worst thing on earth to try and get her head out of the bucket.  I could never in my life believe how strong the neck of a goat is.  Eeeks.  Oh well.

About the people slaying the goat on the sellers property, how rude!!!!  That is a horrible mentality eh?  Hmm...no to goats.  Have a wonderful day, great life.  Cindi

[Mici]

she broke her spine...2 days before she gave birth to calf, the cause...she was...not old but elder plus the calf we pulled out was...enormous-so was the weight pressure on her spine. she wanted to lay down, but..i don't know i think it just snaped..just like that, or maybe she slipped just a tiny bit-tiny bit too much.
but now that we don't have a cow anymore, things are actually a lot easyer. we breed (grow?) cattle, we buy young calfs-less than a week, and raise them, with cow...you never know how she/he will react, so it was a pain to feed the calf, plus with cow-calf feeding you actually can't tell if he has had enough/too much. and i think you know how bad it is if he gets too much milk. so...of 30 minutes spent in stall, 20 were intendet for calf. it's a lot easyer now.

yeah..goats beee beeeee beeee, just wouldn't shut up. and they eat very little compared to what mess they make out of their hay!
slaying on your yard, well it's easyer and safer to transport a dead goat than it is a live one.

[Kathyp]

 

well it's easyer and safer to transport a dead goat than it is a live one.

i think that's why they did it.  i don't think it was to be rude, it just made sense to slaughter on the spot.  different cultures.....
 

[Cindi]

Mici, is there something bad that happens to calves when they get too much milk?  I didn't know that and I don't understand, could you please elaborate on this?  Curiosity is me.  Have a wonderful day, great life, great health.  Cindi

[Mici]

jep, it doesn't do any good for them, that's for sure.
they get umm diarea, and that's realy bad for a young calf, i think that it mostly involves in his digestion so, at least for a week he won't gain any weight or he might even loose weight. and since you can't control his diet (with feeding directly from cow) he can have diarea for..a month? in worst case he can die (but this isn't that often).
anyway, i don't know all that much about it, but it's a really bad thing, that's why more than 3l(twice a day) of milk substitute or milk, is a bad thing.

[Brian D. Bray]

Over feeding calves on milk (or milk replacer) can give them scours (daiharrea).  I've seen calves die from it.  They way we treated it was to reduce the amount of milk being fed by half and adding some molasses to it to thicken it and keep it in the digestive track longer.  Adding flour plus the molasses seemed to work in the really bad cases. 
It might not be what the veternarian would recommend but it worked for my grandparents back in the 1800's and worked for us in the 1950's.