Homesteading Forum banner

It could have turned out much worse

799 Views 13 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  mzgarden
I'll share as a 'lesson learned' in case it helps anyone else.
We keep a baby monitor in the barn in case of...whatever. We have goat kids in the barn during the day with their moms.
One of our pens is not being used but the gate has been left opened to give everyone more space, and in that pen is a metal hay feeder hanging on one wall. When the girls are in advanced pregnancy, they use this pen. Now, the hay feeder is left empty to keep chickens out of it. This morning we heard a distressed yelling - clearly a different sound. I ran down the lane with my shoes half on and no coat, in the pouring rain to find one of the goat kids had somehow hung himself up in that empty hay feeder. He got his head in where the slats are farther apart, slid down and was now hanging. He was easy to get out, I calmed him down and his mom checked him over. No injury, but had I not been home, had I not had the monitor in the barn, he would have hung there until he died.
That pen gate is now closed and locked. Lesson learned - don't make my mistake.

Edited later -- with more time now, we simply removed the feeder from the wall and stored it up in the barn loft.
  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: 4
1 - 2 of 14 Posts
Great idea with the baby monitor and that the kid was okay.

We at first had dog collars on our goats until another goat owner mentioned breakaway collars in case they get it stuck on something. So, I got the breakaway plastic link collars and had them for a few months. My husband and I were outside watching the goats. Two goats were headbutting and the tip of one doe's horn got caught in the gap of one link and it wasn't breaking. As she was trying to free her horn, she was tightening the collar on the other goat so we quickly intervened and all was fine.

Had that been a day when we were at work, I bet we would have had at least one dead goat. Some animals are just kamikazes (or idiots).
  • Like
Reactions: 2
Me too. They do make nice handles and I do think in a less modern setting horned goats do well. But with now-time fencing and barn accoutrements, it's less compatible.
  • Like
Reactions: 2
1 - 2 of 14 Posts
Top