BAD KARMA, A WARNING
Sometimes events conspire against us in the most unlikely way. Nitro, our very first black male cria, was found two days ago running around in the pasture... His mom was recently acquired as an open, proven dam some six months ago and we had recently started to breed her. She told our stud NO WAY, which led us to suspect we could have a retained C/L. Well I guess that was not the case!
The cria weighed in at 13.8 lbs and showed every sign of being fully developed if a little on the small side. He was nursing within an hour of us finding him and Mom was very attentive... This was cause for jubilation as we had been looking for a black - hopefully stud - for a while.
All the usual routines were followed, the weather was clement and every thing was fine.
One can only imagine our dismay when we came into the barn this morning and found Nightro dead in the nursing pen and Mom crying over him. He wa still warm but trapped between the "protective" no climb fence and the floor of the barn. The gap was 4 inches.
We can only assume what happened. Nightro must have been doing his rolling and stretching and somehow managed to roll under the no climb fence and got trapped. Panic set in and in his thrashing around he concussed himself to death - not a good way to die, and certainly my fault.
We have now installed from scrap siding, removable panelling between the nursing pens so that there is NO gap at floor level. Not shown is the bungees which secure the panels via the holes in the panels - Hindsight is a painful teacher. 12/10/2008 - MSS
The Solution
