Our First Farm Loss

I am so saddened to have to type this post.We are all just mortified at finding our poor Carmen,the goat,fatally attacked sometime during the wee hours.We are not sure what killed her, unfortunately. There are a couple of possibilities. We have had a little problem with our neighbor's two dogs.They have been jumping over our fence into our property and growling at Matthea.Only her though, I guess because of her smaller stature.Craig has tried to put up a temporary blockade where they normally jump over.But, they jump over with such ease that they could go to another section as well.So, we suspect that these two dogs,who have formed a pack with another dog and run around this area chasing everything in sight,may have been the culprits. On the other hand it is very possible that it was your typical coyote kill.

A gun purchase has been on the list since the dogs started their harassing. Craig, Sebastian and I are all more than ready to shoot one of them if we are able to catch them on our property again. I am going to talk to a few neighbors who own goats and chickens around here and ask them what sort of problems they have had with any losses and their solutions. We have planned on getting a guard donkey and most of the neighbors do have one.So, maybe that has been their solution as well.

The children are all so sad and shocked.We all are. We have a baby goat that is suppose to be coming soon to our farm.She is going to need more care than Carmen. She is still being bottle fed and will require frequent "feedings" throughout the night.But she will be locked up at night until she gets older and we can be sure that we have something to guard her at night.Our herd may just have to have four walls with a door in the end. We'll see.

Having a dog, which we no longer have,may have alerted us that something was going on. When we were in the process of looking for a place and faced with the possibility of not finding something.Which would have meant we would have had to move into Cactus Petes housing and they don't allow pets.We put all three pets in the paper;Brownie,Pickles and Silver. We got a few calls on the cats and a couple on Brownie.The people who called about the cats never called back and the last lady who called about Brownie wanted her right away.We took Brownie to a family, here in the area, who has 40 acres for her to run on,they have animals,another dog, and several children.We all miss her,but she is much happier with the situation that she is in now.She has the freedom to run,run, run.Which she needed so desperately.

The cats were on their way to the pound if we didn't get into something soon.They ended up making the move with us. As a matter of fact Silver is still on her way to the pound. Pickles will probably end up staying with us (in the garage) or she will fly home with Johnny when he comes out to visit in a couple of months. No indoor pets for us anymore....never say never...huh? We keep the cats in the garage at night and they are out during the day.Silver doesn't do much exploring.They would never survive outside as farm cats.They are both de-clawed and, as city cats who have lived a pampered indoor life, would not have a chance.The two dogs go nuts when the see Pickles roaming the property. They would eventually have their way with her,for sure.