[Huckleberry]

We did a 10 mile round trip hike into the William O. Douglas wilderness this weekend. This was the first overnighter for the boys and they did so good! They each had 18-25 pounds on them including the saddle weight and handled it very well. My Togg, Moose, had an unfortunate rollover accident when he tried to go around some fallen trees and fell through a rotten stump. He rolled twice and ended up with his feet flailing in the air…woops. Our big guy,Bazil, who is a Nubian/Boer cross lost his load a few times, although we had his saddle tightened down really well (?). Our Ober, Forest, fell through the snow that was a few feet deep and wedged himself in a log jam. Beside these events they did a great job. We gave them lots of breaks and luckily had the whole trail to ourselves, only running into a few horseback riders on the way back to the trailhead. We read the trail description before we left and it only appeared we'd be crossing a few small creeks, but we had a pretty big creek crossing. No video or pic's of it unfortunately since we had our hands full. The boys thought it would swallow them whole, but eventually let us pull them across. On the way back they went through with little drama. I have a video of the smaller creek crossing and may post it later on. Once in camp we spotted several elk in the surrounding meadows and they bugled all night and morning (in June!). The only down side to the trip, was my big guy, Bazil, must have eaten something bad because he ended up having diarrhea all night. We drenched him with pepto and he seemed to be better by the time we headed out. We carried most of the load he carried in, just in case he wasn't feeling well, but he was fine. This meant muzzles for everyone in spots we didn't know the name of the plants, although they didn't mind the muzzles at all. Anyhow, lots of drama,but lots of fun! We can't wait to get them seasoned for hunting this fall. I couldn't believe how good they did for their first big overnighter
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[TDG-Farms]

Oh thats a great hike! Some good learning and conditioning it sounds like. Am sooooo envious!

 

[Nanno]

What fun! Love the photos!

The diarrhea could have been caused by hard work/stress rather than something he ate. Cuzco had diarrhea after traveling in the horse trailer on the way to the Rendy, and all he'd been eating was his usual hay and grain. Could be if your goat is out of shape the unaccustomed work could upset his digestion a little bit. But it never hurts to play it safe with the muzzles if you have poisonous plants in the area.

 

[rtdoyer]

That sounds like one of our first trips. We ran in to a "friendly" dog that caused one of our goats to run up through the brush and lose his pack. We ran in to motorcycles, who stopped, turned off their bikes and our goats still managed to freak out and one lost a pack. We ran in to 2 strings of horses/mules and we were on a bad spot in the trail and had to scramble up the rocks with 2 little human kids and 4 goats. The horses spooked and the guide ended up having problems.

It was a "what can happen" will happen event.

What trail were you at?

Tonia

 

[Huckleberry]

I wondered if the stress couldn't have caused the diarrhea. I watched what they ate, but wasn't able to identify everything. I've only studied the poisonous/toxic plants, but need to learn more so I'm more confident in letting them eat different plants.

We were on the Jug Lake/Chain Lakes trail. Jug lake was gorgeous and I couldn't believe there were not more people up there, although I'm glad there wasn't!