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Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Ear tagging goats

Some friends/neighbours of ours have miniature goats, like our sheep (which we haven't done yet) they have to be ear tagged. We volunteered to help them do it as it is quite tricky managing to attach them to frisky naughty goats.


The spike that gets pushed through the ear is quite vicious at about 1/2cm thick. I don't fancy that being punched through my ear!

I was the lucky volunteer to do that actual deed while the other 3 held the goats still.
The first one was a bit stressful as I had no idea how hard I was going to need to press to get the tag through the ear and of course one wants to do it quickly to keep the screaming don. It turned out that they go in quite easily considering how big the end of the spike it. I was also worried I would get them in the wrong place and the poor goats would go around either looking silly or in agony for ever more.
I think it went fine in the end though, one bled a lot but it seemed to stop quite quickly and I think it was because the goat caught it on something rather than because I did it wrong.
We should now be in practice ready to get our sheep done. This will be a somewhat tricker job as the goats are much tamer and friendlier than the sheep (by nature - we keep trying to make friends with the sheep to make things like this easier but they are quite standoffish whereas the goats are very inquisitive and interactive)

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