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It could have turned out much worse

800 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.
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WOW! That baby goat was lucky you were around to help him. It would have been heartbreaking to find him there too late to save him.

Is there any way you could put some horizontal slats across the slats on the feeder to close the gaps and keep curious babies out of them?
We just removed the feeder from the wall entirely and stored it up in the barn loft. It didn't need to be there and it's easy to put up and take down.
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I'm glad you were able to intervene. These are the goats that try men's patience, lol.
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