Just call me Dr. Rowe... or perhaps Nurse Natalie!

Never did I imagine that having farm animals involved so many medications and injections!! I have a whole drawer of my downstairs bathroom now devoted to syringes, needles and animal drugs! Plus there's penicillin in my fridge, and I mean in an actual bottle, not growing on some old lemon Gordon forgot about!!!

I have needles in many gauges (and actually know which to use for what) and syringes from 3 cc to 20 cc.

The, er, lubricant was bought just in case I had to "go in" during goat kidding! Fortunately I haven't had to use it yet.

I needed to deworm the pigs (a bit late, I meant to do it right after things finally froze in December!) with Safeguard, which comes in liquid oral form. So I had this brainstorm at the grocery store..

MINI MUFFINS!

I figured I'd inject mini carrot muffins with the proper dosage and give one muffin to each pig. They really shouldn't have sugary treats but these are so small, I figured they'd be okay (and they did have actual carrots in the ingredients!)

As an aside, half our grocery cart every week seems to be filled with fruit and veg for the farm animals! And that tricolour pasta is a pig treat. I stuff Kong treat dispensers with it. Keeps 'em amused in winter! The ducks love the kale but so do I.

So tonight every pig got a muffin laced with dewormer. It was easy for me to keep track of who got what, and it worked like a charm. Ha!

Meanwhile in my office...

... the cat presence was very heavy! Honey and Annuk snuggling in my chair...

...Daisy and Mootie in a bed under my new desk! I just had my entire office redone, including the floors. Got toss all the IKEA furniture I'd had for 11 years that was falling to pieces, woo hoo.

And outside, it's time for...

...a donkey felfie with Saul...

...and a pony felfie with Finney!

Everyone got a hoof trim last week. I think Esme's hooves are looking particularly nice. She's had many bouts of laminitis over the years and we are really trying to prevent it from happening again.

Saul wants to know who the real ass is in this picture! But these two are good buddies who play together. They are both four years old now.

I love this guy to bits!

So, if you decide to deworm your pigs and use my patented mini-carrot-muffin method, let me know how it goes! :)

Baaaaaaaaa!

Sorry for the lack of posts... I seem to be living and breathing goats these days!

My pretty girl Genny!

The kids think Maamaa is a trampoline. We put a straw bale in there for them to jump on instead of her.

Right now, we are still supplemental bottle-feeding three times a day. The kids are gaining weight nicely.

Gordon and Rosie

Me feeding Annabelle.

On January 16, Rosie weight 7.5 lbs, Annabelle weighed 8.5 lbs and Luc weighed 9 lbs. Yesterday (Jan 24) Rosie weighed 10.75 lbs, Annabelle weighed 11.5 lbs and Luc weighed 12.75. So they each gained at least three pounds in the past week. Yay!

My little Rosie, who we nearly lost on day 2. She is doing great now!

Keaton thinks the kids are amazing! in fact, all the cats seem fascinated by them.

Penny was initially trying to butt all the cats away, but she seems to think they are okay now...

She has a new buddy in Keaton.

It was a sweet moment. (And Penny's overgrown hooves were all trimmed today!)

Rosie is fascinated by the cats. Buttercup doesn't look so sure!

Buttercup playing king of the mountain (or queen?) with Penny and Luc.

Luc is cuter than cute.

The human Luc built the goats a beautiful insulated stock tank. We stick the hose in the end of that PVC piping to fill the tank from the other side of the fence, where the hydrant it!

My friend Luc and I tackled goat hooves today. It went very well! Poor Kevin didn't know what hit him.

Meanwhile, the bromance between Emerson and Saul continues...

And more goats in coats...

Goats in coats!

HOW am I supposed to get anything done around here with this sort of cuteness luring me away from absolutely everything else??

Today marked a week since the goat triplets were born. Rosie is doing MUCH better after her near-death experience last Sunday! She is eating well and like her sister and brother, is playful and cute. We weighed them all today. Rosie is 7.5 lbs, Annabelle is 8.5 lbs, and Luc is 9 lbs!

Here are Rosie and Luc a couple of days ago...

Luc and Annabelle

Luc. He has huge feet and legs!

Since those pics were taken, the kids have grown even more! They were super-playful today, not to mention cuddly. 

Rosie kept suckling on my hair...

...my eyelid..

...my nose...

...and my earlobe, which is incredibly ticklish!!!

When I checked the goat-cam this morning the kids were climbing all over Maamaa, wanting her to get up and serve breakfast!

That's a Sweeter Heater hanging from the ceiling. The surface only reaches 185F so they are not a fire hazard. I am now terrified of heat lamps (too many barn fires around here!) and don't use them in the barn.

The kids are being fed supplemental formula three times a day. Penny is producing more milk now but it's not enough for triplets. So we bottle-feed them as well.

I tke them down to the barn in my overalls and they stay nice an warm!  :0

Gordon does a great job feeding them too!

He is VERY smitten with the kids. Tis is Annabelle.

I think it's looooove!

Today I put bigger coats on Annabelle and Luc!

Penny and Annabelle... food chain!

Rosie still fits into her sweatshirt sleeve, but not for much longer! As you can see, she is obsessed wtih my earlobe.

Keaton is just obsessed with ME. He pesters me for lovin' anytime I'm down in the barn. Now he has taken to climbing on my shoulders while I clean out box stalls!

Sisters Honey and Daisy, two of my five cats from Syros, Greece where my friend Joan runs a cat rescue.

And their other sister, Daisy..

...who is anything but fragile!

Meanwhile poor Tristan was being watched over by Alex and Honey the other day...

...poor old dog! Cats rule, dogs drool.

And this is one of my favourite #felfies (farm selfie) ever...

Keaton and Saul just squeezed up to me like this while I was standing there! Keaton and Saul have been continuing their bromance.

More goat kids pics to come. If you are wondering, we are keeping the babies. The animals here are all pets, and when we take in animals from the OSPCA, we feel we have an obligation to provide lifelong care (fine by us!) Penny was preggars when she arrived, so I consider her babies OSPCA rescues too. Now, I am pretty sure my other three does are knocked up too, but that happened after the guys arrived and we decided to keep everyone together until the boys were neutered in December. We will be keeping those future kids too. I am just hoping that the other gals don't all have triplets!

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend! 

Not one... not two... but THREE!

Sorry for taking so long to post about this, but I'm exhausted! On Saturday around 3 pm, Penny the Ontario SPCA rescue goat popped out...

 

...TRIPLETS! Two girls (red sweaters) and a boy.

After the birth, Maamaa got a bucket of warm water with molasses in it.

Everything went okay. Penny popped them all out without a peep. She has clearly done this before!

Boy, who doesn't have a name yet!

Annabelle.

We have a baby monitor wireless cam in there, and got some screenshots!

Making sure the babies nurse! Buttercup the cat came up from behind to check things out.

Photo op!

Sweeties. We had quite a scare yesterday when nearly lost one of the girls.

This little girl had become lethargic and cold. With the help of a goatkeeper friend, we figured out that Penny simply wasn't putting out enough milk! 

My friend Debbie and I then set to work while we waited for goatkeeper friend to show up. She had us put the little one in a plastic bag, then immerse the bag in a sink of warm water for 15 ninutes to warm her up. We ended up doing this twice, and by the time the goatkeeper arrived, Debbie and I were sure the little one was going to die. We had even gotten a bit of colostrum and milk into her, but she became increasingly lethargic, and finally even stopped crying. We tucked her up in the bathroom on a heating pad with warm blankets and left her while we went out to the barn to check on Maamaa.

When we came back in the house, we fully expected to find a dead kid. Instead, she'd opened her eyes and perked up!

She has been doing much better ever since. All three kids started getting supplemental bottles yesterday.  I've gotten good advice from several friends with goats. We have to be very careful not to overfeed the babies, but at the same time, we need to make sure they are getting enough milk (especially the little one!)

So we're bottle-feeding every six hours or so for the moment, and giving out lots of goat cuddles.

Penny is a very good mother, despite not having enough milk (we are working on that, too, as best we can!)

The little boy is a hog...

BUt adorable!

The little girl we saved yesterday is name Rose or Rosie in honour of the goatkeeper friend who came over to help us. Her middle name is Rose. :)

Here is one of the cuter videos I took this weekend:

I'll keep you posted. It's nerve-wracking!