Lost a buck this weekend

[sawfish99]

Earlier this year, we moved farms and I had to rebuild fencing from the ground up. When I was building the buck pens, there was someone nearby selling the 52" high steel combo panels at a discount over new and about 40% of what goat panels would have cost. So, that is what I used to build the buck pens.
We have 3 bucks and the pens are 1 large rectangle, subdivided. So the middle pen shares the sides with each end pen. The bucks stick their heads up through the higher/larger openings, but it hadn't really been a problem.

On Saturday, one of our bucks (our youngest, $600 buck just added to the herd this summer) had 2 does in with him for breeding. He was fighting a lot with the buck in the next pen who is larger and a year older. Long story short, it looks like the younger buck had his head through the fence and the older/larger buck hit him just right to crush his larynx on the fencing. We found him dead.

Since we are down to 2 bucks again, we can separate them so they can't fight with the middle pen as a buffer. However, I think I will have to re-fence the entire setup with goat panels before we add another buck next year.

Disappointing to say the least.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

So sorry for your loss - but that is definitely a good warning about keeping bucks in pens next to each other!

 

[OneFineAcre]

That's awful.

 

[elevan]

 

[bnttyra]

How tragic and sad. Sorry for your loss.

 

[promiseacres]

how frustrating! Sorry for your loss

 

[bj taylor]

that's really too bad! what a loss.
I was having my doelings stick their heads through the gate for a few days (I hate my gates!). my larger doe would ram them from the side & I feared she would break their neck or rupture their bellies. I've fixed the problem, but it makes the gate that much harder to work with.
that section is a chain link fence w/typical chain link gate. I need to come up with a smarter idea that I can open & close without difficulty but the goats can not open & won't put them at risk