Friday after Thanksgiving

Little girls finally got to go into the big pasture with the other does.  This is Crystal and Lucy.  Below are sisters, Dawn and Delta.

The tastiest is always just out of reach.

Went out this morning to check on things before breakfast and saw a puddle of blood as I was walking around.  Started checking on everyone to see where it might be coming from and realized that Jasmine's ear had been ripped apart.  Apparently, she was in someones way and when they butted her, their horn caught in the hole left by the ear tag that I had removed when they were little.  Tried to doctor it with hydrogen peroxide and some antibiotic powder that was left over from one of the dog's wounds.

Checked on it a couple of hours later and it was still bleeding, so started trying to find a vet.  Of course, no one was taking emergency calls today -- tried two goat vets, left word at the home of one of the vet assistants who had, unfortunately for her, given me her home phone number once.  Then I tried to contact my dog vet who is an old farm boy from Idaho and had performed an emergency operation on one of my little goats a while back (archived post).  Couldn't get him either, so left word for one of the other dog/cat vets at the clinic, thinking that possibly "an ear is an ear."

In the meantime, I checked online -- stitch it back together, staple the two pieces together on a piece of plastic -- nothing I could do -- still needed a vet. 

When the dog/cat vet finally called me back he asked if it was about a dog named "Goat."  He was pretty quite when I told him it was an actual goal and explained the problem and that I was desperate for help.  He finally said "you must be desperate if you're talking to me."  Very comforting.  

Later, got in touch with my goat-owning friends and they told me about some stuff they use for wounds, so I ran into town.  Caught Jasmine out in the pasture, tied her to a tree and doctored her.  Then late afternoon the vet assistant called back and said I needed to wrap it and start her on penicillin shots.  She suggested a couple of feminine products on either side smeared with antibiotic ointment, taped and secured with more tape.  You can see my handiwork. . . lasted about three minutes after I put her back in with the herd.  

Now it's dark, she's bleeding again and it's too cold to bring her into the yard without shelter for her tonight.  Going to be hard sleeping and not worrying too much about her tonight.