O/T pony and goats possibly poisoned!

Beki

Gold Member
You would not BELIEVE the night i had last night :rolleyes:

Quick back-story - me and OH bought this house with my mum and dad a couple of years ago and split it into two semis, so we now live next door to them.

Ok... so... last night mum got home from work at about 7pm so i went next door to say hi, and looked out of their kitchen window onto the paddock. I saw a pigeon flapping around and Mork and Mindy (our goats) were nudging it from behind :rolleyes: So we went outside to see if it was injured and it looked like it had broken it's wing :(

So dad got the air rifle (which we only keep to put rabbits/pigeons/small animals out of their misery if we find any injured) and shot it. Unfortunately he was looking down the lens at the time he fired and it recoiled and has given him a bit of a black eye :D :p LOL

Then we decided to put the pony and goats in, so went and got them out of the paddock. But when we went into the paddock dad noticed some plastic near the water trough so i went over to pick it up and it was empty sachets of rat poison :eek:

I went over the paddock with a fine-toothed-comb and we found 6 in total! :eek: With a few of the blue granules scattered around too!

So we quickly put the animals in the stables and i ran (yes, RAN :rolleyes: ) into mum and dad's house and told mum to get off the phone and phone the vets cos the animals might have been poisoned.

When we phoned the vet she took down the name of the poison and then had to drive half an hour away to her other vets practice where she keeps all her reference books with poison info etc. So while we were waiting for her to phone back we went over to see the neighbour to ask if he'd put down any rat poison sachets (at this point we were thinking that some yobbo had chucked them into the paddock over the trees!). He said no so we went to see the farmer over the road.

He said no, but the caravan park at the end of our lane has had a problem with rats and has been putting them down. Apparently when the rats find them they eat them and then carry the empty packets to where there's water and them dump them there. And we found most of the packets near the water trough.

The farmer said that he's been finding loads of packets near his drainage system and sewer outlet too. So at least we know it's not someone trying to kill the animals on purpose :rolleyes:

Anyway, when the vet phoned back she said that the type of poison had not killed any goats of ponies as far as her research showed. She said there were 7 goats on record who had eaten it and none died. And 3 ponies. Two of them had had no vitamin-k1 injection (the cure) and they were fine, and the one who HAD had the vitamin-k1 injection had developed mild colic but was fine afterwards.

She said to keep and eye on them all over the next 3 days. The first 24 hours were the most critical, but it could take effect up to 3 days later :rolleyes:

She said the first sign is bleeding gums, so as long as they don't develop bleeding gums then they'll be fine.

She doesn't think Tilly (the pony) will have eaten any, as the grass is good and horses generally don't eat anything that tastes 'foreign' to them anyway. The goats will eat anything though :rolleyes: so we'll have to keep a really close eye on them.

Me and Alan (OH) went and checked on them every 2hrs last night overnight and hosed down the paddock around the water trough this morning and gave the trough a really good scrub.

But we're going to have to keep a really close eye on the paddock now, because i went out there just now and found ANOTHER empty sachet :mad:

Mum and dad are away until tomorrow lunchtime now, but when they get back they're going to go and see the manager of the caravan site and tell him what's happened and see if he'll use bait boxes instead, as this is ridiculous - we can't keep going out to search the paddock every couple of hours indefinitely! :eek:

Oh, and on top of that we had a phonecall last night that my uncle's got to go into hospital next tuesday for a couple of days because his breathing's bad so they've got to see what's wrong with him and he's my nan's carer so mum and dad have had to go down and get nan today (200 mile round trip!).

Let's hope that bad things come in threes and nothing else happens!!! :eek:
 
That is terrible. Hope you get it all sorted and the caravan owner changes his methods and that all your animals are fine.

Irene xx
 
Oh Beki, I'm so sorry, you have had a time of it, I hope your goats and pony are OK today and they stay healthy, let's hope the caravan park owner will listen to your request and use bait boxes for the rat posion in future.

Best wishes to your Nan and Uncle to get well soon too, thinking of you. X
 
Oh Beki you must have been frantic! I hope it all gets sorted out for you soon. Get some sleep tonight Hun!
 
Beki fingers crossed all the animals will be fine. You are right goats eat everything so they are the most likely (if any) to have had some. Have you thought about trying to stop the rats from getting in the paddock some other way? It's a pain if they're going to keep coming round with packets and dropping them near the water. Hope your Uncle is OK as well.
 
Thanks my lovelies :) xx

I'm SO tired. OH is too, but has been a real sweetie and has taken the kids out for the day and won't be back for at least another 2 or 3 hours, so i'm here all alone with only the dogs for company, and i'm tempted to have a little nap (i never nap!) on the sofa.

Tilly and the goats still seem fine thank goodness! Just going to keep checking them and the paddock every couple of hours until they come in. I don't think they'll need 2-hourly checks tonight... i might just go out about 2am and then leave it until morning *yaaaaawn*
 
So pleased they are all Ok, Beki, have a little 'power' nap love, it will do you the power of good. X
 
Beki fingers crossed all the animals will be fine. You are right goats eat everything so they are the most likely (if any) to have had some. Have you thought about trying to stop the rats from getting in the paddock some other way? It's a pain if they're going to keep coming round with packets and dropping them near the water. Hope your Uncle is OK as well.

My first thought was how to stop them getting in through the fence, but i just can't see a way to do it :( as even if we put weldmesh or similar all they way round the bottom of the fence, i reckon they'd either burrow under it or go under the gate :sigh:

The fencing we've got at the moment is horse fencing... a bit like stock fencing but much smaller holes, going from large at the top to smaller at the bottom. The squares at the bottom are only about 2" square, but rabbits just hop straight through :eek: so rats obviously have no problem!

I didn't think there was a rat problem in the area, but i suppose there's the farm over the road with lots of straw/hay and cows, and then there's the stables and muck heap. Plus we've got chickens and pigs (i would have thought that the pigs would eat rats?! :confused: )...

And the caravan site would have lots of bins and waste from the restaurant etc... i suppose it's ineveitable? :confused: :sigh:

I'm hoping the caravan site manager will be amiable, but we don't really know him so who knows. Nightmare!
 
I'll see if my Dad has any suggestions to help. Through the years we've had goats and sheep as well as a variety of other 4 (and 2) legged friends. I'll post something when i've seen him in the next hour or so.
 
im so sorry,
i had a horse when i was 13 ish after a few years she escaped and was ran over... losing a pet is awful - i hope yours are fine. im very envious that you have so much space, although it sounds traumatic at the mo. try the rspca, there must be limitations on this stuff if there is a risk (even tertiary) to livestock.
best wishes to you and tilly
 
I'll see if my Dad has any suggestions to help. Through the years we've had goats and sheep as well as a variety of other 4 (and 2) legged friends. I'll post something when i've seen him in the next hour or so.

Thanks hun, that would be fab :)

You've had sheep? Awww! :D

We were thinking of getting a couple of lambs last year, but were warned off them as apparently the ONLY thing they ever think about is the best way to commit suicide :eek: LOL...

So i've heard, they just constantly try to hang/choke/poison/drown theirselves!

Not quite sure my nerves are up to keeping sheep hehehe :D
 
Beki, i've asked my Dad and he says the caravan park shouldn't be using poison in packs, so they are deffo your best starting place. he says rats will get in whatever type of fencing you try as they are persistent little bu**ers! Fingers crossed the park co-operate!
 
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