Goat Fail

I collected links for the week, yes I did…but I don’t feel like posting them today. Maybe another time. Some of you may have noticed {via my Twitter feed} that our goat Abigail is no longer with us. Since a number of you have emailed me and wanted details on our progress in keeping goats, I suppose it is my duty to share with you the bad along with the good. I do so like to focus on the good around here on the blog, but the reality is that something Bad happened last week.

First, though, I would like to publicly thank Kelly {and her husband} who faithfully answered my multiple emails while Abigail was in decline, and offered me countless words of advice and comfort along the way. Kelly has kept goats for years and has been kind enough to share her wisdom with me since I first pondered buying goats many months ago.

Anyhow.

Here’s the deal: I’m not going to tell you all of what happened because it was just awful and I’ve never really seen a creature suffer before, so I don’t really want to discuss the details.

It all went like this: both Abigail and Charlotte acted funny over a week ago. I assumed they needed deworming. I have been reading through my goat care book, but frankly my reading has not been able to keep up with the real needs of the goats. I spent last week reading through the entire medical issues chapter. And I tried everything I could think of, as well as everything everyone else suggested, but at the end of the day, Charlotte got better, and Abigail got worse. And then she died.

We were up with her from shortly after midnight Thursday night/Friday morning until about 3:15am, when she passed. I have read enough now that I am pretty sure she had goat polio, which is basically a metabolic problem causing a severe vitamin B1 deficiency.

Of course, when you realize this after all the stores have closed up, there is nothing you can do but pray and watch your sweet doeling steadily decline.

That, and debate your views on euthanasia.

I have been assured by well-meaning friends that this does not make us failures as goat owners, but I must say I doubted myself in those first few hours after we lost her. It was the most awful night I’ve had in a long, long time.

So animals get sick, and sometimes they start walking in circles because they get “one-sided,” and shortly after this, sometimes they die. I know this seems obvious {except the circling part}, but it really is something to consider when thinking about buying a pet of any kind. I can’t say that when we brought these two babies home it ever crossed my mind that we might lose one of them two months later.

As I look out my window, I see poor Charlotte, missing Abigail.

And I also see a greyish-white Pygmy Nigerian Dwarf cross wether. He’s crying because he and Charlotte do not yet like each other. He is overweight and looks somewhat like a wine barrel with legs…and a beard.

Why in the world do I have this poor creature in my goat kennel? Because goats cannot live alone. They are herd creatures. And Charlotte has bawled mournfully during all daylight hours since Abigail left her. This still-nameless little fat goat is the Backup Guy. He’s the best friend she needs right now, whether she knows it or not.

He’s also the only friend I could find for her currently available for sale.

She’s pretty mad at me, but I don’t care. I just want the crying to Stop. Right. Now.

Before my neighbors hate me.

So that’s that.

Abigail is gone. Nameless Short Fat Goat is here as a temporary replacement. And we’ll see what the future holds.  At this point, as there are no Kinder bucks in our area, and now that we need at least one new doe, making sure Charlotte has purebred offspring is likely the best idea. My cousin does cattle AI, and so we’ll probably be hiring him to fertilize Charlotte when the time comes. And then we’ll pray for doe babies. And then we’ll move on with the plan.

Unless, of course, something else goes wrong.