Broken Horn and Bloody Feet 1 comment

It’s been one of those months…washing machine broken, garage door opener broken, and now a broken horn. Over the last few weekends we’ve been working our way through the entire herd worming and trimming feet. Well, Sunday afternoon, I went to catch a yearling doe who turned out to be quite wild. I caught her with my crook, but then grabbed her head to lead her over to the stanchion. I needed one hand free to open the gate so I grabbed onto one of her horns with my other hand to hold her. While holding her she decided to jump and it happened…I could feel the horn weaken and knew it had broke. It was still attached and there was only a little blood so I thought “good, maybe it isn’t as bad as I thought and it’ll be okay.” I locked her in the stanchion and went about working on her feet. When I had finished working one side and was switching to the other, that’s when I noticed it. She must have been struggling and moving her head up and down and loosened it the rest of the way. The horn was flipped over 180 degrees and hanging by a “thread” down the side of her face. I called a friend who said to cut it the rest of the way off and if it didn’t stop bleeding, I would need to cauterize it. Thankfully, blood flow wasn’t bad and it eventually clotted. She doesn’t seem phased by it at all. I’ve put her in a small pen by herself for a few days to let it heal.

Now onto bloody feet. We were finishing up the last few goats this afternoon and as I went to make a cut this doe kicked the leg I was working on just as I was closing the clippers. It was a deep cut and blood was flowing everywhere. It was squirting out the hole and blood stop powder wasn’t doing a thing. We quickly grabbed a rag and some duct tape and went to work. We poured on a bunch of blood stop powder, then cut and placed the rag over the wound. Next we used duct tape to secure the rag tightly to the foot so there would be constant pressure to help stop the bleeding. We finished up, let her down and she started grazing. A little later you could see that she was favoring the foot, but didn’t appear too serious. I will check on her tomorrow.