Old Goat Trouble

I’m a goat lady. I have been known to speak of goats from the pulpit of my church—sheep to the right, goats to left. There’s a reason for that metaphor. Believe me.

Goats are escape artists. Sheep forget that they are farm animals corralled inside fences. Goats never forget anything.

Goats fight over two grains of corn even though there might be buckets full of goat grain six inches away. Head butting over breakfast is a lifestyle.

Stubbornness is goat specific.

People who get goats think that they are getting sheep. Those same people sometimes give us their annoying, head butting, fist fighting goats. When they get tired of dealing with goat culture they give us the stubborn, head butting, escape artist goats they own, and so we came to own a goat named Snowflake.

Snowflake is an old, girl goat of questionable parentage. More meat goat than milk goat her babies—two every year—are meaty. The problem with Snowflake is that she is an old gal, and I mean old.

She’s so old that her udders now drag the ground. When I look at Snowflake I feel her sagging, dragging pain. I’m a bit of an old goat too.

This year Snowflake was NOT supposed to get pregnant, but life finds a way. And so, Snowflake had two more meaty babies—a boy and a girl—Jot and Tittles.

But one look at our old goat’s utterly gravity challenged udders, we knew she wasn’t going to be nursing anyone ever again. So into the shower her two babies went to be bottle fed and kept warm.

To be fair, Snowflake barely let out a squeak when we carried her kids away.

“Baaahh,” she bleated, once, without any real conviction. The little buckling screeched his head off. The little doling barely hiccupped.

Before we knew what was happening, we were people who had goats living in the house.

A few bottle baby tips:

Cow’s milk works fine. Expensive. But fine.

The milk must be warm or the little princes and princesses won’t eat it.

Colostrum is essential for baby goats in the first hours of life. You buy it by the ounce and can put it in your smoothie.

Coccidiosis is a parasite that lives in the intestines of a lot of farm animals—goats for sure. Without colostrum and mother’s milk, coccidiosis can proliferate and kill baby goats. Medicine to control the uncontrolled growth is important.

You can buy the medicine by the gallon. Do not put it in your smoothie.

Coccidiosis is species specific and cannot hurt humans---unlike bird flu which seems to worry a lot of humans.

The learning curve for raising baby farm animals can be sharp, as sharp as the sharpest goat cheese. So, let’s give a big thanks to all those still worrying over and working with the animals that make our tacos and omelettes possible.

Linda (Old Goat Trouble) Zern