Kidding season is well over and went very well. Lots of beautiful kids and hard choices on selling/retaining. I have decided on the ones I am retaining. Two Nubian doelings and four Lamancha doelings.
Dune was my newest Lamancha herdsire for breeding last fall and he had many lovely daughters born this kidding season. look forward to freshening the three I retained this coming spring.
Also retained a buckling out of Camaro and Kenya this year. I decided this after a very sad two weeks in March. I was slowly adding in a new alfalfa/clover hay I had purchased, and on the second day of feeding this hay, things went terribly wrong. Turns out, after testing the remaining hay, this new hay was contaminated with aflatoxins. The whole herd was very sick, some worse than others. Following the onset of symptoms, we treated, treated, treated for hours straight with no break to eat or sleep. I lost Spree, Eclipse and Camaro in the first 24 hours after symptoms started. Over the next 14 days the rest of the herd slowly recovered. The two yearlings who were still pregnant at that time had premie twins, about a week into being very ill. Three out of the four premies were born alive and with care, prayer and a strong will to live, they all three survived. Two are gone to new homes now, but I kept little Miracle, Viola's daughter.
All but Spree, Camaro and Eclipse survived and are back to normal now, weeks later. The three I lost are greatly missed.............Thinking I will test all hay coming from a new supplier from now on. That was an extremely painful and expensive experience.
