We’re Ready

Friday evening, I decided I had to catch Joani and get her shut in.  I still have to work the first part of this week, and I need her shut someplace where my mom can check her.  She is not easy to catch when I need to do something to her (hooves or kids).

Joani

I do remember one year when I needed to get her in to help her kid and I had to chase her all over the barnyard and did ring-around-the picnic table before I could finally get her.  This time, despite having horrible hooves because I can’t catch the brat, I still had to chase her around the barnyard.  Finally, I got her trapped on the west side of the barn.  We did quite a few laps in there before she finally gave up.  Seriously. I’d have never caught her.  Something about being five months pregnant with sore feet wore her down though.  This time, I had another problem with trying to catch her…Cinnamon.

Cinnamon

She was having a fit of jealousy, and I couldn’t move without Cinnamon cutting me off and getting between me and Joani.  Finally, I did catch Joani and drug her across the barnyard to the greenhouse, where I trimmed her hooves before letting her go.  Of course, I did have to pause and threaten Cinnamon while I was trimming because she was trying to fight through the fence. I completed trimming the hooves, fastened the gate, and she could finally pick a fight without it being a problem.

Now Joani gets to lounge in the greenhouse and be fed mulberry scrub brush and be treated like a queen.  And she lets me just walk up and start petting her now that she’s shut in.

She’d still prefer to be out in pasture, but that’s not happening until she has kids.

I did add Litha to my little group in the north paddock.  She’ll be thirteen in a couple of weeks, and the heat combined with her arthritis was not fun to try and keep up with the herd in the Back Forty.

Litha

I did have to scold her and Haley and tell them not to fight because why not?  One is thirteen and one has only three functioning legs, so why not fight.  It only took a couple of minutes for them to settle down and decide it was too much work to fight.

Haley

Everyone else figured out not to bother fighting.  Just eat and get ready for babies.

Tansy

And I do think I got this all arranged with none too much time before we start kidding.  I don’t have a due date for Onyx, but I don’t think she can go much longer.

Onyx

And Zinnia this morning is standing in the shelter I made away from everyone.

Zinnia

Look at how she’s dropped.  Her udder is tight.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she had them before I go back to work in the morning.

Let the kidding begin!

Ready to Fight

Haley is cranky with still being in the Love Shack.  I did let her out into the pen outdoors.

Haley getting laid down outside

That helps, but she’s still not happy.

Cheering her up with peanuts

She is not happy with the continued shots of antibiotics and pain meds and bandage changes and being away from the herd. But she is improving.  The surgical wounds are healing.

It won’t be long until she can go up north with my soon-to-be-kidding girls.

Haley’s daughter, Zinnia

Until then, she’ll have to settle for trying to fight through the fence.

Haley and Bambi

I’m glad Bambi wasn’t too into fighting.

Silly goats.

Oh, Bob. Stop Fighting.

Bob is in full summer prowling and hunting all night mode. Of course, he comes in for a quick breakfast before heading back out, and he does enjoy spending his evenings in the house.

Bob snuggled with Sky the night before

When he didn’t show up for breakfast one morning last week, I wasn’t too worried.

When he didn’t show up that evening, I was horribly worried.  After calling for him for nearly an hour, he finally showed up.  He is not happy when other cats come onto the farm, and it was immediately obvious that he’d been in a horrible fight and lost.  He was covered in tufts of fur coming out and little devil seeds.  I noticed blood right away on his legs and ears.

I tried to clean him up and remove the seeds, but it was days later that I finally quit finding them.

It was obvious that he was going to need a visit to the vet for some antibiotics.  He was already hot with fever.   He had completely lost a toenail.  He came to bed and snuggled in while I was reading.  He didn’t move all night other than to sigh and relax a little.  He was better by morning, but he was still feverish.

Luckily, the vets worked him in to be seen right away (I love my vets).  He got trimmed around the bite wound.  There are corresponding marks on the back side too.  He got a long-acting antibiotic shot.

After two days, I was still pulling those seeds out of his fur and finding new wounds.

How did I miss that?

I still haven’t let him out of the house, and that makes him grumpy.   Life with a hissy, growling Bob Cat is not fun.

Waiting for me to open the door.

Although, he’s still happy to sit on my lap and help me with my knitting.

The ear got all puffy, but the antibiotics are taking care of that.

When he’s not snuggling with the dog, he’s beating on him.  I mean that seriously–growling and jumping at him and smacking with the remaining claws out.

We’ll all be happy when Bob can go back outside.  But he is getting way too old for this kind of behavior.