Last minute farm jobs, and an End of a Chapter

Today, I did a lot of things around the farm. Cleaned out the Chicken coop one last time, cleaned out the Goat Pen one last time, grabbed both Goats and gave them a final hoove trimming and then did what I have been putting off over a month to do, but had to do it.... and that was to dehorn Leia.

While I had her on the milking stand, which by the way, needs to be modified just a little bit... my Goats are too small even for that!! The feeder trough and head holder just needs to be brought down about four inches... my Goats are so tiny! Anyway, so I have Leia on the stand, Im holding her down and trimming her hooves, after that I started examining the Horn that needs to be trimmed. If you trim too far down the horn you will hit nerve endings and also blood vessels. So, the first idea was to trim about a half inch at a time and see if she grew more and more distressed as we got closer or not. However; upon examining the horn, it became obvious (because the horn wiggled) sometime in the past month she broke the outer shell of her horn off at the area where the band was applied when she was a baby. When I touched that area, she screamed like I've never heard a goat scream before!  So I knew it was a painful area, but with the shell of the horn broken already in that area, I decided to go ahead and snip it off there and hope for the best. Took the sheers and took one little snip and off flies the horn tip! (literally I spent almost five minutes looking for it in the grass later) Also... her nub shot out a squirt of blood that must have traveled out about foot, squirting me and the table pretty good. I was hoping no blood would come out at all, but I never have that kinda luck. However; it bled for only a second (like a blood blister popping) and it didn't bleed anymore. the second I snipped it, she stopped crying and I think it probably relieved a huge Headache in her head or something, she almost relaxed. I poured on the anti-septic and gobbed a big chunk of it on the tip of her horn stub and she was off on her way like nothing ever happened. I can only imagine the irritation she must have had with a half broken horn. I am glad that chore is done! And well, at the end of the day, Leia gave me a little piece of her for me to keep as a keepsake! Ill probably make a knife handle out of the horn tip or something awesome. I think she has forgiven me for helping her out and seems to be doing fine. Honestly, I think it was more traumatic on me than her. :P

Today I am packing up my guitars and my computer, so this definitely should be the last post till I am on the flip side of things. Ill be talking to you all soon! I hope you enjoyed this part of my journey, stay tuned to see where I go from here!

**~~Aftermath of Goat Horn pics- View at your discretion~~**

After the blood was washed off the table, horn beside the shears.

Poor little Leia, lost her horn!

You can kinda see in the middle where it was barely hanging on (the red area)

Look how small her little horn was... my tiny Nigerian Goats!