Goats and Dogs

I have a miniature homestead. I have chickens and ducks (who are currently freeloading and not giving eggs), a goat who just gave birth to two kids and we will start milking again in the next few days, and a garden that I will start putting my indoor starts into the ground hopefully this next weekend. It's not a very big piece of land, not even a quarter of an acre, but it's big enough for what we use it for. 

The goat kids are about four days old. They were born this past Saturday, March 12, 2016. Yesterday I got the scare of my life.

I prepared for the arrival of the kids by reinforcing the goat fence with chicken wire to keep the kids in and my dog, George, out. He's a pit bull and we've had problems with him and livestock in the past. Our dairy goat, Zara, is large enough for him to think twice about messing with, but anything smaller than that and he thinks that it is fair game to play with. George is fine around people he knows and/or people who can and will be firm with him, but he plays very rough and allow him a bit of leeway and he doesn't know when to stop.  I apparently did not secure the fencing as well as I thought I did. The chicken wire was not strong enough or tall enough to deter George.

I was gone for about 90 minutes on Tuesday morning, getting groceries from Costco and Fred Meyer. When I got out of my car my neighbor told me that while I had been gone George had gotten into the goat pen and had attacked the baby buck, Denver. She had been alerted to this by Denver's screams. Thank any god or gods or universal power listening that she was home. She was able to get George off of Denver before he did any permanent damage. 

Denver is fine, if quite shaken. Zara has signs of trying to fight him off, scratches around her head indicating she she head butted him several times in an attempt to stop him. According to my neighbor Zara and the other kid, Seattle, were hiding behind the goat shed when she found them. 

My sister works at the goat dairy where I got Zara from, and she was kind enough to come down and make sure that Denver was OK. She even brought down a shot of penicillin for him. 

George was confined to the house for the rest of the day. I blocked off the doggy door and he is still only allowed outside while supervised. I went and got some extra heavy duty 4 ft high 14 gauge welded metal fencing to reinforce the goat fence, and we put that up with a heavy duty staple gun last night, but I won't be comfortable leaving George home alone until I have it up with fencing nails. I got some last night, but they were the wrong size. I used the staple gun just to get it up, and I will put cinder blocks around the bottom if I have to go anywhere to make sure George can't burrow underneath, but I would really just rather not go anywhere today. 

I do blame myself for this, George was just acting like a dog. I should have taken better precautions before the kids were born. It is a mistake that I am glad did not have more tragic consequences and that I will not make again. We adopted George four years ago, and he is a very big part of our family. I never wanted to believe he could do something like this, even by accident. My guess is that he was trying to play with the baby goat, and he got very carried away and instinct took over. I will not allow myself to be that negligent again.