Life has been a lot of learning and teaching lately.
A large variety of activities that I now frequently find doing were completely unknown to me just two years ago. From the type of animal husbandry that we are now engaged in to operating heavy machinery to a wide range of other tasks, it's all stuff that I've learned recently. Thankfully, I cannot only show my how a lot of these things are done, but I can pass the knowledge on to others too!
HELPING THE NEIGHBORS
It wasn't too long ago that I was trimming the hooves of our sheep for the first time in my life. Yesterday, I was already passing that knowledge on to my neighbor. For those of you who don't already know, and
live right next door to me, so we often help one another out.
One of their goats had a tear on its ear. Possibly, their dog was the guilty party. Since a long strip of it was dangling, we had to cut it off before it tore and made matters worse. In the photo above you should be able to see a bit of blood on the ear closest to me.
Since I had been planning on showing them how to trim the goats' hooves anyway, this seemed like the easiest time to do it. After all, we were already in the pen, with the goats, and had a razor blade with us. There are many tools that people can use for this task, including dremels and shears, but I've always been pretty handy with a razor blade and it can get the job done.
They had two female goats that we wanted to give a "pedicure" to, so that was a total of eight hooves, each split into two halves. Since is a fast learner, I only have to demonstrate on one hoof and he took care of the rest. Not only did it give us a chance to help keep his goats in optimum health, it also gave us an opportunity to hang out and talk a bit. It is such a blessing to have helpful friends so close by.
The two does that they have right now are very different from one another. One is a larger "meat goat" with her horns intact, of the Boer variety. The other is a younger "milk goat" who has been dis-budded, of the Nubian type. Hopefully they will be able to breed and provide more goats for the years to come!
As always, I'm
and here's the proof:
proof-of-pedicure