I hope the burning flesh smell leaves my car.....

I'm going to leave the breeding of animals up to the professionals, I'm clearly not cut out for it. Tonight for instance. Bet you didn't know baby goats have to be disbudded at only a few days old. I guess I should back up, disbudding is done so that when the goat grows up they won't have horns. It kills the emerging horn bud...or something like that. I've had horned goats before, I don't want horned goats ever again. Then again maybe I just have a mean horned goat. Anyways, I digress. I've been looking for someone to disbud these baby goats for about a week now. I called a vet before they were even born and was told they would do the procedure but once I got them there the vet said she didn't feel comfortable doing it. Grrr. So I started my search. I ended up putting a plea out to Craigslist looking for someone to disbud these kids. I posted the ad yesterday and not a day later I found someone willing to do it. Don't you just love Craigslist?

So this evening I separated the bawling kids from the bawling momma goat and off we went with them in the back of the car. I have to admit I had no idea what I was in for. Well, I mean I'd done a lot of research and knew the general idea but I just didn't know it would smell that bad. This guy that contacted me had done hundreds of disbuddings so I felt comfortable knowing he knew what he was doing. From what I've read if you do it wrong you're likely to have a brain damaged goat. Often they act brain damaged anyways so I can't imagine actually having a special ed goat. They put each one in a box with nothing but their head sticking out then placed a circular hot iron on each horn bud, holding it there for several seconds.  Meanwhile the poor baby is screaming it's fool head off while smoke pours out filling the room with the most awful burnt flesh smell. It was seriously nasty. The iron cauterizes the flesh so there is no blood or anything, and the kid is left with these two rings on top of it's head. It took maybe two minutes from the time I walked in there to when he was done with both. It was impressive. I loaded them back up in their dog crate in the back of the car and off we went for home. By the time I got home the car smelled like burnt flesh and I was happy to get out. Let us all pray the smell dissipates.

So yet another experience I can add to the list. I hope this is the one and only disbudding I will ever have to participate in again. They don't seem to hold it against me, they just love to be held and loved on. They are happy as long as they are in a lap.

Isn't my Mom cute?

My Dad holding a kid, that little one didn't want to leave his lap.