Well that blo(at)s

Paul called me at work this afternoon.  He said that when he and Rhainnon went to feed the goats, that Rhiannon said Dandelion was sick.  She had found her laying down and not wanting to move or get up.  I told him to take her temperature and it was normal.  We both assumed it was bloat.

I've never had to deal with bloat in such a young goat, but know that it isn't a good thing.  We've dealt with older goats with bloat and managed to get through it without much ado, but I knew this was much more serious.

I got off work and went to the vet, hoping for some sort of magic pill, but knowing that there wasn't much that could be done.  When I called Paul to tell him the vet had given me a grim prognosis, Dandelion had already died.  Only two hours after finding her on her side.  I was out there earlier in the morning, but didn't notice anything strange.  Of course, now I wish I had spent more time out there and checked on everyone more closely before leaving for work.  But sadly, it seems that there wasn't anything to do about it.

The vet also said that he had someone else call in the day before with seventy-five of his lambs dead from bloat.  Apparently there are different types of bloat, the one that was afflicting our animals right now is called frothy bloat and they get it from eating too much rich forage like legumes and clover.  Which we have in abundance around the paddock and the kids have been outside the fence chowing down.  And now I don't know how to keep the other kids from gorping out on it.  I really don't understand why it happened just now; the clover has been up for several weeks and the kids have all been picking on it off an on.

So now I have to worry about the other kids eating too much, having their stomachs bloat up to the point of preventing their diaphragm from being able to allow them to breath and thusly suffocating and dying.

Yep.  All rainbows and ice cream cones down on the farm.