Thursday, June 25, 2009

Hot!!!

Yesterday when I got home and moved my sheep and goats to a new rotation one goat was not acting right. She was the last animal to move into the new paddock and was walking a little funny and was holding her ears out. She also was the only animal not eating. (She was one of my Texas goats and they had about 7 months of mohair on. I was going to shear them in Aug. so they would have enough, but not too much mohair for the winter.) I took her temp and it was 105.2-heatstroke! Not good so I gave her Banamine and Penicillin and then brought her back (in my car as they are quite far away from the house/barn) and sheared her down.

This morning I got up at 5:30 to shear the buck and the other 2 does. (I also e-mailed both the other people who got goats and were also going to wait until Aug)

Her temp this morning was 98.5 (temps can drop when they have heatstroke) and she was still not right so I called my vet out and he thought she will make it and her problem now is her rumen is not working as a side affect of heatstroke.

I've never had heatstroke before and most of the time my sheep and goats don't have shade, but they did have shade yesterday and today. I'm guessing she just had too much mohair to cool down. She is probably 100-120 and had 7 1/2# of mohair (7 months growth. ) Angora goats don't have the bald arm/leg pits like sheep and the heat must just have gotten locked in. And of course she is the best Texas goat that I got. The other does had 6 and 6 1/2 # and the buck only had 4 1/2 #.



mohair!
The buck
The does-the one in the middle is the sick one

3 comments:

  1. Oh my, from a cool fog to heat stroke. Did you say she had 7 1/2 pounds of mohair!?
    When do they shear in Texas? Texas gets HOT.
    Hope she gets threw this.

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  2. Yes she had 7 1/2 #. They shear in Jan and June. Around here Angoras are normally shorn the end of March and Oct. We were going to wait until Aug to shear so they would have enough regrowth for their first winter. I'm not sure if I'll she shear them in the fall or not. I did have an old Angoras who I skipped the fall shearing on and her mohair was not too long, but she was not in her prime!

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  3. Your mohair is beautiful. I am glad you recognized that your goat had heat stroke and did something to help her before it was too late. I hope you can get her rumen back to normal. Let us know how she is doing in a few days.

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