Play Things
for Kids
We looked at several web
site showing boer goat kids at play - climbing
on wire spools, stumps, trees, shelters
or playing on boards and on teeter totters.
I was warned by an elder goat man, not to
have the ‘play things’ too high
because the little kids would climb up and
fall off, breaking their backs or legs.
I built a couple of shelters with the secondary
purpose of giving the billies a place to
climb and rest in the sun, and I built a
teeter totter.
My teeter totter was a 1
x 8 board, 12 feet long with a 4 x 4 about
12 inches long half way down the 1 x 8. It
was cute and easily built. From the first
day the kids played on it. They would run
down the board causing the end to go down.
The big goats would walk it causing the little
goats to be thrown from it. We moved it from
one area to another so the little ones would
have something to play on. This was a good
play thing; no one could get hurt on it. At
the high end it was only about 10 inches high.
This spring, we had kids
and their moms in an area separated from the
rest of herd. We were preparing to feed when
we heard a goat screaming. We ran in the direction
of the sound and found Star
Cloud trapped under the teeter totter.
Her head was between the plank and the ground;
and who do you think was on top of the teeter
totter, standing on the board, directly above
poor Star Cloud? Her mother. We pushed mom
off the teeter totter and retrieved poor Star
Cloud.
A horn had been broken and
she was bleeding profusely from the broken
horn. We tried Blood Stop, wrapping paper
towels, a cloth towel, and more blood stop;
but nothing seem to stop the bleeding. The
poor little broken horn was pointed out to
the side. Finally, we decided that we needed
help.
We called our Vet at home,
and he told us he would meet us at his office
- on Sunday afternoon. So Star Cloud got a
ride to the top of the hill on a four wheeler,
then in the truck on Pat’s lap to the
Vets. He was waiting for us when we got there.
Dr. Galbraith removed the
broken horn, and Star Cloud got three stitches
to stop the bleeding. Had we not been there
at the time of the accident, Star Cloud would
have bled to death.
We returned to the farm,
took her back to her mom and all was well.
Louise,
the mom, allowed her to nurse and she was
back in the fold.
Star Cloud has grown, and
the broken horn is about half the length of
the other horn and seems to have no problems.
We sometimes think the other goats ‘kid’
her about her broken horn; but since we have
not learned all of the vocabulary of the goats,
we are just not sure.
As for the teeter totter,
it has been remove from the pasture, never
to return.
A moral to the story? No,
just a teeter totter removed. It was a good
idea that went really bad. |
