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It could have turned out much worse

798 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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If they can find something to get stuck in, hurt themselves on, or otherwise make you crazy they will. I go through my barn about once a week with an eye out for anything different, interesting or changed that might be hazardous. Always hoping I find it before they do.
Glad you were there, my baby monitors have saved their fuzzy behinds several times.
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One of the many reasons my girls do not have horns. I have heard the excuses about how they "need them to cool themselves" "they need them to protect themselves", phooey. After the horror stories I have heard (and experienced here) none of my goats will ever have horns.
Glad you were there to prevent a tragedy, though.
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