Category Archives: Animal Husbandry

Posts related to animal caretaking

January 29, 2021 · 6:41 am

Animal Updates

Since we are trying hard-core to socially distance ourselves, our only regular companions these days are our animal buddies. Those of you with pets will understand how much comfort furry friends provide. Those of you who don’t, ought to adopt yourself a fuzz-buddy or two. The pandemic isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, vaccine or no vaccine, and neither should you. Having some four-footed company will keep away the quarantine blues.

Fred and George Pupper are in the doghouse. Mostly Fred. One day last week my husband didn’t latch the gate correctly. Fred swooped in and caught two of the three rabbits housed in the back. We are assuming he thought they were large rats. Fred is an excellent rat catcher. Cocoa witnessed Fred’s transformation from fun-loving friend to killing machine and is still a bit traumatized by it all. Anyway, Fred must be tied until something is done with the final rabbit. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

We finally rehomed Terry. He has a bigger play yard and seems happy enough. He’s the only dog there, which he really needed to be with his dominance issues. Four dogs were too many for our little compound.

We had a bit of drama with Fuzz. Someone (my husband) left the front door open and Fuzz strolled out. There were people having clandestine family gatherings on our road, at least two groups. Well, one of the groups decided to take Fuzz with them when they left. He’s been cat-napped and we are so sad. We are still a bit in shock. I mean, after going through two near-death experiences and the deworming process, someone just ups and takes him. And his first time venturing out the door too. Well, what type of behavior can you expect from people having clandestine family gatherings during a pandemic, right?

Anyway, we are up to 6 kids in the Flores Goat kindergarten. They are just big enough to go out with the adult goats on the foraging run. My husband traded one of the older chivos for a borrego, so now we have a single borrego. He isn’t too old, less than a year perhaps. He likes to play with the kids. Up and down the road they go. Yesterday, the youngest chivita got “lost” and hysterically ran towards the horses that were tied out front. We all watched in horror, sure that she’d get herself trampled. She didn’t, but that ended recess for the day.

Rojo is being saddled trained. He’s doing well. Lady has figured out how to open her door and has been letting herself out nightly. Fred and George don’t mind the extra animal, but she’s eaten all the leaves off the coffee, nispero, and granada trees. Someone (my husband) needs to do something about that.

We seem to have founded a palenque (literally noise place but used in this area to refer to a place with many roosters mostly trained as cockfighters). We have 6 roosters in addition to 4 hens somehow. Although we aren’t training cocks, they fight continuously causing no end of noise throughout the day. I’m hoping some of them can be rehomed, sooner rather than later. It’s quite a cacophony in the morning.

If you’ll remember, the neighbor’s cat Garfield had a litter of kittens a few weeks ago. She had them in the abandoned house on the other road. My son tried to encourage her to keep taking care of her babies by leaving food and water. After a few days, the kittens were gone. We feared the worst. There are stray dogs, coyotes, and all sorts of other dangers for newborn, helpless kitties. However, the other night, two of Ms. Garfield’s offspring came to the front door for a handout. One looked like a mini-Garfield and the other was black and white. My son and I joked that they were meowing something that resembled “Mom told us to pick up the food order and here we are.”

Sadly, when Fuzz was cat-napped, so was Garfield Jr. The remaining kitten took up residence in our wood pile out front, so we brought her in after a day or two. There’s room and we have all this cat stuff. She’s a much sweeter kitty than Fuzz was. My husband hasn’t taken to her though–perhaps it’s too soon and he is still grieving Fuzz. Or maybe because Manchas (Spot) is female. Cocoa isn’t sure what to make of her. He wants to play, but Manchas is having none of that. We’ll see how it goes. Cocoa misses his Wrestlemania buddy.

We continue taking the Puppers and Cocoa on multiple walks around the block each day. That bit of sunshine and fresh air makes everyone happy. And year two of the pandemic continues….

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Filed under Animal Husbandry

Tagged as homesteading, Mexico, Pets, raising animals

December 25, 2020 · 9:47 am

Just One Of Those Days/Weeks/Months/Pandemics

Just as Mr. Cocoa Beans was on the mend, Fred stopped being able to pee. Since we take several walks a day, with Fred and George copiously remarking their territory, we noticed right away something was amiss. We decided to wait and see if it would clear up on its own, but the next day was no better, so off to the vet we went.

Sick Fred made himself a hole to lay in.

Fred is three times the size of Cocoa, so it was a tight fit on the moto. He was also a bit antsy, this being his first ride and all, but we made it there. The vet diagnosed a UTI or maybe prostate disease. He started him on a 3-day course of antibiotics to see if that would help. Otherwise, he’d have to be neutered. We brought Fred home and set out to town again.

The next stop was INE. When my son called yet again to see if his ID was ready, the person said that he’d need to bring another copy of his CURP because there was some problem with it. So that’s what we did. Only when he went to drop off the copy, the person there said that he needed to get a new CURP card because the old one wouldn’t do.

We then went to a “ciber” to print out the next payment sheet for my son’s class through UVEG. He’s nearly finished, maybe 2 classes left, and maybe some community service. Yippee! Seems a race whether the pandemic or my son’s high school career will be finished first. Of course, this time around the class couldn’t be paid at OXXO for whatever reason and would require a bank trip. Whatever.

While he was at the ciber, my son asked the desk clerk about the “new” CURP. She knew exactly what he needed and licketly split, he had a copy on the memory stick. Hallelujah! Later, he was able to email it to the person at INE to move along the process. Maybe he’ll get it before his 19th birthday. Maybe.

Pleased with our success, we stopped for a bit of Chinese takeout to celebrate and headed home. Less than a minute after our arrival, we heard some bleating from the animal area. Dashing out, we discovered not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 new-born kids. Two looked just like their mommas (one brown and the other white and brown) but the two black ones, identical in every aspect–whose babies were those? Each black kid was literally shadowing the other baby, one with the brown one and one with the white/brown one. At first we thought maybe they were twins. However, it appears that one will have horns and the other won’t, just like the mamas. So maybe each mama had a black kid? Either way, it worked out well that way as all four are assured of sufficient milk from their mamas. The next day the four stooges were playing Houdini escaping the enclosure, leaping on the alfalfa bales and causing a rumpus. It’s good to have babies around!

The next day we headed to the vet again for dose 2 for poor ol’ Fred. Then we had to go to the bank and pay that class. Strangely enough, the bank was closed, but I didn’t have any problem getting in and using the ATM machine. That evening, another goat baby chose to make an appearance. The mama had a terrible time and some intervention had to be done. My husband’s sciatica was acting up, so he presented quite a memorable sight at 3 am out there in the goat corral, crouched in his underwear, trying to assist the birth.

Exhausted, the next morning we headed to town for the last antibiotic dose. Fred had perked up some, but he wasn’t back to normal just yet. Only, the vet was closed. It seems he was sick and wouldn’t open again until who knows when. Uh-oh. COVID???? Then we come to find out the mysterious bank closure was also COVID related. EEEK! And here we were blatantly out doing errands (albeit masked and gelled up while maintaining proper social distance). But never fear, AMLO said that as long as no gifts were exchanged during the holiday season, we’d stop the spread. Sigh.

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Filed under Animal Husbandry

Tagged as homesteading, raising goats, sick dog

December 4, 2020 · 7:02 am

The Grim Came for Cocoa

Mr. Cocoa Bean had a little health incident in November. We weren’t sure he was going to make it. He may have had parvo virus, or it could have been a number of other issues.

The image of the Grim appeared in Harry’s tea cup signifying ominous tidings.

If it was the parvo virus, it may have come with this stray in La Yacata that we dubbed “Grim” after the black dog shaped omen in the Harry Potter series. He took up residence at the opposite corner from the house a few weeks before Cocoa got sick, skeletal but exceedingly friendly, not that Cocoa wanted to be friends. If Grim brought the sickness into the area and Cocoa managed to sniff or eat or roll around in something that had the virus, well, that would be how he got it. Whatever it was, he was skin and bones in short order, unable to keep any food down.

We took him to the vet who gave him a fever, diarrhea, and nausea shot. That helped for a day. But then he was back to puking all over the place. The anti-nausea pills didn’t stay down long enough to be effective. He seemed so ashamed about his involuntary spewing even though I didn’t scold him. He’d take me to each place he’d upchucked and stand there with his head lowered until I cleaned it up. He was alert the entire time he was ill, looking at me with soulful eyes, but so physically weak.

We took him to the vet in town every day for a week for a nausea shot in the hopes we could coax him to eat something. Finally, after 4 days of him not eating, we decided to force feed him some baby food (chicken and rice). He wasn’t happy about that at all, but it seemed to do the trick. He kept the food down, ate a little more the next day, and by the third day he was eating on his own.

It was an exhausting week. I was up everytime he was sick. I fretted when he wasn’t being sick. I did online research to see what else I could do. But he pulled through, which doesn’t usually happen with our pets. We put the rest of the dogs into doggy quarantine in case it was Grim that brought the illness. They weren’t too pleased with that.

I have to say, that even as sick as he was, Cocoa LOVED the trip on the motorcycle to the vet’s. My son held him firmly wrapped up, but his little face was uncovered so he could see everything. He even barked at a lady who screeched and jumped. I suppose she thought Cocoa was a baby.

He’s starting to plump up again and is back to his full energy puppy level. He’ll go back to the vet’s in a week or so to see about getting a vaccine against the parvo virus, just in case that’s what it was. Meanwhile, Grim has apparently left the area, his work here done.

Fuzz, our cat, took advantage of Cocoa’s illness to claim his bowl of food as his own. He’d eat Cocoa’s food, then jump up to eat his own. I swear he gained 2-3 pounds in the week Cocoa was sick. We knew Cocoa was better when he tackled Fuzz at his food dish and reclaimed his dinner.

Funny enough, although Cocoa managed to make it to the pee pad every single time he had to pee while he was ill, that abruptly stopped once he recovered. It’s pee here, pee there again. We are still working on housebreaking I guess.

He also decided that the bed I bought him was super comfy, but not as comfy as sleeping on the people bed seems to be. As soon as he had enough strength to hop back up on the bed for naps, that is what he did. Well, we’re just happy he’s so much better even if he hogs all the covers.

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