It’s been a tough week here.  Perdy got her cast off at the beginning of the week.  Because of that, she had to be confined for about a week so her leg could finish healing.  Unfortunately, it seems the reduced amount of running triggered “floppy kid syndrome” which we’d never seen before as our kids always run free.  She looked a little off before bed one evening, then by the morning she was running a very low temperature.  Nan and Vanessa helped her all day, and our vet Kathy was able to visit in the evening and tried to help her.  Sadly, she passed away around 10pm on Thursday.  Zen and Vanessa have been with us most of this week.  They’ve been a great encouragement to us.

I’ll be recapping previous videos of Pongo and Perdy today, and even showing some wonderful videos of Perdy running around post-cast from earlier this week.  Pongo is now running with the herd, so I’ve got a good handful of videos of him finally being able to explore our yard!  (Including some exciting videos of Pongo playing on the new rock wall that Zen has been building!)

I hope you are all doing well.  We’re thankful for every day we have, even though not every day is the best day.
-Phil

Pongo had a rough first couple of days. It took him about 48 hours to finally start getting up and walking on his own. Phil or I would go out every hour or two and give him a bit of physical therapy in the form of standing him up, supporting him as he shuffled along, and moving his joints, which seemed to want to flex in every direction. We were also concerned that his heartbeat and breathing were abnormally fast. I have a wonderful friend who is a vet and I asked her to come take a look at him on Tuesday. When she arrived, I grabbed both babies from where they were laying in their shelter and brought them into the house where we could all be warm during Pongo’s examination. It was when I plunked Perdy down on the floor that the vet noticed she wasn’t standing on her right. She’d been hopping around only an hour earlier! We had a look and the leg was broken near the hock joint. I realized with horror that some goat must have stepped on her! I don’t have any goats that are mean to babies, but Perdy must have been lying in the doorway of the shelter or under one of the feeders and got trampled by accident.

So it turned out to be a good thing I had the vet here! She made a splint for Perdy’s leg and then she checked out Pongo. She agreed that his heartbeat was abnormally fast, but she couldn’t hear anything really wrong with it. He’s bright and active and has a pretty good appetite so she said to just keep doing what we were doing with the physical therapy.   

Because we now had two special needs kids, we decided to set up an enclosure in our basement where we could keep an eye on them and make sure no other goats could step on them. We brought Snowball in to feed them and settle them into their new temporary home before taking her back outside.

Babies love having a cubby hole to hide in, so we found a cardboard box for them to crawl into. It barely fits the two of them together, but I think they like being smooshed in there.

We were expecting cold weather the next day, but the predicted storm passed us by and we were able to let the babies out with their mama in the big pen for most of the day. Pongo was intrigued by the dog, who responded to Pongo’s inquisitive prodding with a slow flapping of his tail. It was pretty adorable!

Perdy adapted to her cast pretty quickly and was hopping around and exploring just as much as her brother. In some ways this is convenient. Having a baby goat with a broken leg is sad, but since her brother is slow to develop it’s slowed her down to his pace. She was kind of jumping all over him before and being a little bit annoying. Now they are both shuffling around and gaining mobility at a similar pace.

Snowball was happy to enjoy a day of sunshine with her new little family. I closed the gate so the other goats couldn’t bother them.

Today Phil and I brought the babies into the house for a while. They found a nook beside the washing machine and promptly curled up in it. Too cute!

We have some new arrivals! Meet Perdy and Pongo! (I’ll bet you can’t tell why we named them that.) I’ve always wanted a Dalmatian dog, but I’m sure I’ll never have one. They just aren’t practical for farm life. But having black and white spotted goats is surely even better!

We were watching Snowball all day yesterday, but I was pretty sure she’d have these two during the night and I was correct. I couldn’t get to sleep because I kept watching her, but I finally dozed off after a final check at 1:00 a.m. I was shaken awake at 2:45 by Phil who had checked the camera and spotted two wet kids wriggling on the ground! It looked like Pongo had just been born about 10-15 minutes earlier and was still pretty wet while Perdy was already cleaned off and attempting to stand. So they must’ve been born between 2:00-2:30. They are adorable and Snowball is doing just grand.

It’s hard to tell these two babies apart. Perdy has lighter gray spots down her back and Pongo’s are darker. They both have black spots on the backs of their necks, but Pongo’s spot is bigger. Still, it’s going to be a job telling who’s who at first glance!

This is Pongo. He’s having a little trouble standing up. The ligaments in his hind end are still all loosey-goosey so his back legs won’t support him yet, but I gave him some selenium and vitamin E and he’s already improving! He sure has no trouble nursing when I hold him up to the milk bar!

This is Perdy. Isn’t she precious?

And tonight you can see them in Phil’s fiddle livestream!