newton's the goats journal

[Baymule]

I have an ewe, named Ewenique, who ran into the wire, walls, whatever, bounce off and ran away again, to get away from me. She was wild and wanted nothing to do with me.....until a few days before she lambed. Suddenly she was my best friend. I obligingly rubbed her tummy and she loved it. She is still friendly and stopped bouncing off the walls trying to get away from me. I suspect your Sara is the same. All of a sudden you are not the big green monster anymore. LOL

Now about your jack. Get him cut. When your ewes come into heat, he has testicles and will get aroused. In his frustration, he may chase the ewes and could even hurt them. Jacks are surprisingly strong for their size and can whip the crap out of a horse (ask me how I know) and do a lot of damage. My 16 hand gelding still bears the scars of bite marks on the crest of his neck where a standard sized jack chewed him up and dragged him around. If my jack could beat up a horse 3 times his size and weight, what could a jack do to your sheep?

A friend of mine had a jack for a pasture guard and it was great-until his cows went into heat. The jack chased the cows AND knocked the bull off them and wouldn't let the bull breed the cows. The jack got sold.

So please, if you want to keep him for a pet (donkeys make good pets and you will love him) or for a pasture guard, please get him castrated.

 

[Bruce]

I was wondering the same but so far the reasons have been valid. I think.

Sometimes "because I liked him" is good enough, right?

 

[Latestarter]

Because he looks better in our pasture as opposed to the meat markets refrigerated case? Bay makes a really important point about getting him cut.

 

[Bruce]

How many meat markets carry donkey?? I think he is super lucky to have found @newton the goat , probably would have ended up as dog food.

 

[Latestarter]

Well... remember, this is Canada we're talking about...

 

[Baymule]

I look at facebook sites for kill and slaughter pens. There are some damn fine horses that go to slaughter. I am not opposed to horse slaughter, but a lot of those horses don't need to be there. The FB sites offer up the better horses for sale and many of them get a new home. There are LOTS of donkeys in kill pens, most people toss a few donkeys out in the field and in no time they have a herd of donkeys. Answer; take them to the sale. Newsflash-nobody wants them. If people would stop breeding them, they would not be an over population of unwanted donkeys and horses. So they go to slaughter.

 

[Bruce]

 

[newton the goat]

I feel guilty... so extremely guilty.... we honestly though we had more time before she had her piglets.... her getting bred in the first place was completely accidental... coco our female Tamworth lost 9 piglets yesterday due to a slight slant in her house and due to the boar (coconut) trying to force his was into her nest.... stupid coconut ..... she seems so depressed now. Eats a bit here and there but mainly walks around hanging her head and even walking to her hut and making these whiny grunts while in the doorway. She won't go in now. Dad and I both blame ourselves for this matter. I wish we had been able to prepare more. I wish we had a proper stall further away from the boar for her. I wish so many things but it's already done and over with. We will be finishing coconut after we re breed the pair so there will be no more "incidents" I am also going to be working on a shed with a birthing stall for the next time which should be around August or September. I don' want this to happen again so I will be doing everything in my power to nullfy the chances of it happening. first babies lost on the farm this spring... I didn't realize it would hurt so much.

 

[newton the goat]

Well... remember, this is Canada we're talking about...

There is actually a market for horse meat around where I live... many butcher's (not the one I'm at) actually included horses on the list of animals they butcher. In fact one not too farm from me actually sells horse meat.

 

[Bruce]

I'm so sorry about the little pigs Newton! So many things that can go wrong, I guess we should be surprised when they don't.