So yesterday (Tuesday) was my first official day of work on the ranch, and it was a lot of work! I got here last night around 5:30pm to meet Marv and Carrie (my wwoofing hosts) and they were extremely nice and welcoming. They made me feel right at home and got me situated right away. I am sleeping downstairs with my own room, shower, and laundry room. We all ate dinner together last night and Marv started to explain everything that I will be doing around the ranch. When I walked into the living room there were baby goats laying under a heat lamp because they were newborns who were really weak due to such cold weather. So they had to be brought back home and bottle fed and kept warm. However, sadly, one passed away shortly after I got there. But they knew he wasn't going to make it, so it was somewhat expected. So my first taste of tragedy on the ranch already! But the other baby goats were so cute and cuddled up together! They slept under the heat lamp all night and woke up every 2 hours to be fed. The reason they didn't get to stay with their mothers was because 1 baby was a triplet and the mother can only feed 2 babies at a time, so he wasn't getting fed and became weak. The other baby's mother had mastitis of her teats and couldn't produce milk or feed her baby, so he was weak as well. Plus with this cold weather, they would not have made it through the night, even inside the barn. I actually got to go out to the ranch last night, around 11pm because all the goats are delivering kids right now so they need to be watched by someone 24/7. Marv, Carrie, and Carrie's son Mike are all taking shifts watching the goats right now, so Mike had the 11pm shift last night. We had to drive him out there so I got to tag along and see what the ranch looks like. It is a really big piece of land with a barn, kennels and trailers divided up. So this morning I got up around 9am and got dressed for the day. Carrie and I then did some errands around town, like taking 11 dozen eggs to the market to sell to them, so they can sell the eggs to the customers. Then we went to the ranch to start work for the day. All 4 of us were there working, and there was still so much to do. Today's jobs consisted of checking, deworming, delousing, and giving booster shots to all the goats on the property. So we had to wrestle each goat down, hold it down, check to see if it was pregnant, give it a booster shot, give it deworming medication orally, put lice and flea medication on its back, and then mark it with blue paint to ensure that we medicated and checked each goat. The goats were really strong and ran around everywhere, so the herding dogs were used to round them up and keep them corralled in the barn. Then I had to clean out the barn floor with a pitchfork and spread new hay around. Then we had to check to see if any goats were in labor, and 1 was. So we had to corral her into a jug so she would be really close with her babies when she has them. Then we had to try to graft the bum kids (baby goats with no mom) onto other goats that could feed them. However, the mother goats knew that the babies were not theirs so they were head-butting them away and not feeding them. So we had to make sure the kids were not getting hurt and find a place warm to keep them until we got back home. Then we had to check on all the mother dogs and their litters, and there were about 5 different mother/baby litters today. Then, unfortunately we lost a puppy today. He had some sort of seizure early this morning and went downhill from there. He passed away this afternoon. That was a sad moment, but it just made me realize how important it is to just accept that as a part of nature and life and keep on going. There were so many animals that were relying on us and we just had to suck it up and keep working. It was really important to see death like that early in this trip for me, because it showed me that I can handle death in this profession and still maintain composure. It was really sad, but it is also a part of the natural life cycle of animals, and you just have to move on and focus on all the other animals that still need you. So we got as much done as we could, and left the ranch around 5:45 pm so that Mike could go to work and we could go home and eat. But we get to go back out later tonight to check on the goat in labor to see if she had her kids yet. When we got home I got to bottle feed 4 baby goats in the living room and play with puppies. The dogs that they breed here are sold for either herding cattle or guarding livestock. The herding dogs are Australian shepherds or border collies. The guarding dogs are mixes between Akbash, Komondor, and Great Pyrenees, or pure bred of each. The adults weigh between 100 and 140 pounds and the puppies are enormous for puppies as well! The dogs are very sweet but very protective of their livestock. They are designed to guard them against wolves or domestic dogs that come to attack the livestock without actually killing the predator. They are very smart dogs and very gentle with us when we are around their livestock.
After dinner Carrie, Mike and I went back to the ranch to check and see if any of the mother goats had their babies because we were expecting one to have them by the time we ate dinner. When we walked into the barn I could see that the one goat who was in labor earlier in the afternoon had her baby, but it was huge and she must have had some difficulty with him because she lost him and he was already stiff and cold when we found him. Then I saw a little baby goat standing in a corner and I knew it was a newborn, so we had to find out who its mother was. Then I saw a trail of blood leading to another goat, who we discovered went into labor after we left and must have had that baby goat. Then we found another baby goat in another corner and figured out that it was the sister of the baby we already found, so the mother had 2 babies. Then I found another baby goat who had already passed away, so we later had to piece together the facts. So what happened was that this was a first time mother so she didn't know what to do with her babies. She also had triplets, which is not good because they only have 2 teats so a third baby will not have any food. So the baby that passed away was the first born, and because the mom was new, she didn't know to clean it off so it passed away, but the other 2 survived and we found them just in time to take them home and feed them so they wouldn't starve or freeze. That was another really intense and sad moment, but it was just another part of the natural cycle of life so we had to accept it and do what we could to save the babies that did make it. Its hard to see so much death so early and know that they are all just tiny little babies, but it happens and it actually helps me to realize what I will have to experience frequently as a veterinarian, so I can start to accept it and adjust my mindset to it. So that is how life and death are occurring here on the ranch so far. But I know that so many more exciting and great things are going to happen, so I am very happy to be here and having a great time.
No comments:
Post a Comment