One Last Jab

Today I got another vaccine syringe to vaccinate Daphne after yesterdays debacle. Getting Daphne out of the goat field was no problem, and getting her onto the milk stand was easy and giving her the injection … no problems at all. So what was all of the problem about yesterday, I ask. Goaty troublemaking is all that I can put it down to. After injecting, I found that I had made a little lump under the skin, so the injection probably went into to right place but formed a bubble of vaccine. After rubbing this lightly, the bubble went away and no vaccine came out … jab job done.

After that, I took down the last of the electric fencing from the goat field. It wasn’t energised, so it was just forming a potential tangling danger in the field, so it had to come out. That only took a few moments.

The last job with the goats today was a weigh-in. I don’t have a set of livestock scales, so I need to use a weight estimation method where you measure the goat around the girth behind the front legs. This is a pretty easy and relatively accurate method of estimating the goats weight. I use the weight estimation table provided on-line on the Fias-Co Farm website (by the way, Fias-Co is an excellent resource for dairy goat breeders carrying loads of information on breeding and goat husbandry).

Goat	Girth	est. Weight
Holly	98 cm	71.7 kg
Minnie	81 cm	41.7 kg
Daphne	77 cm	39 kg
Darius	75 cm	36.3 kg

Last time I estimated their weights was in December 2011

Goat	Girth	est. Weight
Holly	91 cm	62.6 kg
Minnie	81 cm	45.3 kg
Daphne	51 cm	13.61 kg
Darius	48 cm	11.79 kg

So, Holly is … as has been said before, our biggest goat. Actually, she has lost a lot of weight since May, so I’m kinda glad that we didn’t weigh her earlier.

Daphne and Darius are still pretty much the same size as each other and Minnie is still a healthy sized goat, with an average weight of 61kg for an adult. She’s still only 2 years old and is still expected to grow somewhat. Holly, on the other hand, is already a big girl. Daphne and Darius have pretty much tripled their body weight in the last 8 months, so I am pretty happy with their growth and diet.

I’ll keep giving them a weigh-in every six months or so, so that I can see how they are progressing. Weight is a very good indicator for health in any animal. If they start shedding weight, and you are still feeding them the same feed … then start looking for the problem. By the same token, if an animal is putting weight on and the feed is the same, other problems may be the cause.

I’m using their weight as an indication of overall health and, for the kids, growth. The weight of Holly and Minnie is pretty consistent for each goat, so I’m not worried about worm burden. I still need to send a poo sample off to get a definitive worm count for the girls, but at the moment, they are looking pretty good. It has been cold and wet lately, so the fact that they are still able to maintain their overall weight is a good indication that their feed supply is up to the task and that their health is good.