CountryByNet.com Forums :: Joy and grief with dairy goats

My wife (Earthmother) and I intend to develop our farm to raise dairy goats, to produce gaot milk. We are going to raise Nubians, and a local Nubian breeder and farmer is mentoring us through the learning process. She wants us to start small, and we started with three Nubian goats kids that we got a week ago Sunday. We picked the kids out at birth, and visited them at their home farm, so we were already attached to them when we got them. We got Thelma, Lousie and Bonnie at about 8 weeks old. They're so cute and affectionate, that, of course, they'll be pets as well as working farm animals. Last Wednesday, my wife was home, working on our construction project. She checked on the girls, and saw that Thelma was panting, barely able to breath. Karen called our vets, and rushed poor little Thelma there at over 80 miles an hour. Thelma passed out several times during the trip, and one of the vets was waiting with oxygen. They put the oxygen on Thelma, and Karen and the vet rushed her in to work on her. At first they thought Thelma would make it. It seemed like aspiration pneumonia. The vets (all three of them) worked on our baby, and told Karen to go home, and they give her care through the night. They thought she had a chance to pull through. But they called later in the evening, Thelma was going downhill quickly, and was only breathing twice each minute. She wasn't going to make it. I was working late that night, out doing inspections, and Karen couldn't reach me. The vets and Karen had to make the sad decision to put poor Thelma down.

A post mortum showed that somehow Thelma had gotten a timothy grass head into her trachea and it had lodgeed where the trachea branches off into the two lungs.

We were devastated, and still are. We love our animals, and goat kids are one of the most lovable of all. Especially Thelma. She had pretty white ears, and a big white star on her head. And she had the craziest voice. She didn't bleat like the other goats. Her voice sounded like the scream of a vampire in a B science fiction movie. But her screams were so full of joy, they made everyone laugh, and love her. She'd scream when she saw us, or got a treat, or played with her sisters. We can't believe we'll never see or hear her again.

The other goats are doing fine, after a few days of calling for their sister, which broke our hearts even more. Bonnie and Lousie are very loving, cute and smart. They already come when their names are called. Their favorite place to be is in our laps, or to be carried. We're still bottle feeding them, but they're browsing nicely and drinking water from their water bucket.

Our barn cats are coming into their pen, and it's so cute to see the cats and goats romping together. Goats are a joy to have. My wife always says that there should be a law that everyone should have at least two goats. No one could be sad for long with them around.

We live in the biggest dairy production area in New York state, and one of the biggest in the country. But of course that's for cow's milk. We're working with local goat farmers and the cooperative extension to try to establish a goat milk co-op. We're hopeful it will work out, but we'll always remember and miss our little Thelma.

Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."

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