We arrived home yesterday from our wonderful camping trip and were immediately smacked in the face with unrelenting heat! Thankfully, our wonderful farm sitter had the fan going and the waters full for all of our goats here at home! This did make unpacking and cleaning up our trailer and truck a little more interesting, but we were able to get it done. Once we were parked and I had the horses unloaded, I went to check on our goats and noticed that Moots and her son along with Zoey were open mouth panting from the heat.
The weather went from snowing on Mother's day here in Western PA to 92 degees on memorial day which makes it difficult for the goats body to keep up. I immediately jumped into action and started soaking down each of the open mouth breathing goats with our hose that I had just unloaded from the trailer, much to the chagrin of my goats , who hate water!! But the key was that the wash down quickly cooled their body temperature and allowed them to dissipate the heat. I refreshed all of their water buckets with cool water and partially closed the barn door to provide more shade. This seemed to work well for the goats and everyone laid down with the fan blowing on them to chew their cud. I was still concerned, so I ran to get my electrolytes and gave everyone a dose of electrolytes. Heat stess can come on at anytime and can have serious consequences with your goats, close monitoring and quick action can be the key to success and failure. I hope everyone stays cool and has a wonderful week! Happy Goating!!
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