Phoebe House Farm Thread

We have one breeding buck, Francis (or Frank), and a wether to keep him company, Zachary (or Zach). Frank is super sweet and, believe it or not, probably our best behaved goat. Frank is actually light gold and moonspotted, but our sun has bleached him. If you part his fur you can see the red underneath. Zach is fairly new to our farm (we lost Frank's other buddy and had to replace him) and not very good with people. At first I thought he was just scared, but it is becoming apparent he's more just stubborn.



Our three girls are: Juniper, Rosie, and Providence. Juniper and Rosie are first fresheners, and Providence just got bred a couple of months ago. Juniper likes attention, but only on her terms. When her twins were born it took a bit of convincing before she realized the wet, screaming things were her kids. Rosie wants all the attention RIGHT NOW and gives kisses on command. She took to motherhood like a duck to water. Providence is pretty sweet, but usually just wants food. She's also our only polled goat, so fingers crossed for polled babies! I honestly have no clue how she's going to react to being a mother, but we are fairly confident she'll eat through her entire labor. (No udder pic for Providence since she's barely even pregnant.)





Juniper and Rosie each had a set of twins. Juniper had a doeling and a buckling, Rosie had two bucklings.





Juniper's buckling, and Rosie's chamoisee buckling (who is now a wether) are both up for sale. The doeling and Rosie's other buckling have already been sold.

Rosie and I have had quite the week and a half! 😓

Last Wednesday she wouldn't eat and had a fever. By Thursday morning, although we were treating her fever, her fever was all the way up to 107. We called the vet out and the vet said she didn't have mastitis or pneumonia. Her best guess was that Rosie had been bitten by something. I had already started a course of Biomycin before the vet came, so we just went ahead and finished it out. Now I'm glad that I did, despite thinking it wasn't needed at the time!

Around a week later Rosie no longer had a fever, but still wasn't eating the best. Also around that time I noticed her walking funny. By this morning it had turned into a limp favoring her front, right hoof. Although it wasn't quite time for a hoof trim, I trimmed all her hooves (in the pouring rain) and discovered her hoof was cracked. It isn't bad, but I can see that it getting infected would give her a fever. After soaking it in epsom salt and Betadine, I sprayed it with Blu-Kote and gave her aspirin to help with the pain. I'm hoping her hoof being cracked is the only problem and she'll get passed this quickly now that I've found it!

Here's my good little girl standing in the epsom salt water without being forced to. 🥰


(And yes, she's in a sweater... 👀 She lost weight over the past week and a half, and I felt so bad for her in this weather. )

If anyone is interested in reading the full thread about this, here is the link to it: HELP! Goat with high fever.