Tragedy strikes!
Several evenings ago Tricia fed Annie in the pasture. Her triplets, that were less than a week old, were gathered around her as she ate from her trough. When Luna (one of our Jersey cows) finished her feed, I walked her out of the barn, through the corral and into the pasture. Big mistake! Luna is quite gluttonous and ran straight for Annie's feed. Fortunately, I was right there and caught her before she could gobble down the goat's food. I walked Luna farther out in the pasture and held her.
After a time, I looked and noticed that Annie had finished her food, and I let Luna go. Luna ran to the trough to see if there was any food left. Annie's triplets were sitting in a group in the shade next to the barn. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Tragically, instead of running to the food trough, Luna detoured and ran up to the barn, directly to the triplets and right through them. They are too young to know to get out of the way of the large (not-so-smart) cows.
I watched in horror as Luna stepped right on top of one of the babies' backs. Luna is not a big cow, but she still probably weighs 750 pounds. The baby goat weighs less than 7 pounds. The baby goat cried and cried and cried.
Tricia now looks back and tells us that what happened next shows the difference between boys and girls. Tricia immediately ran to the baby goat, picked it up, and began nurturing it, and showing it compassion. In contrast, I ran immediately to Luna and punched her. (I know, not kind, right?) Russ picked up a dirt clod and threw it at Luna. We were angry and impatient with Luna's decision to do that to a defenseless animal. Ironically, we weren't so kind to Luna, who is also a defenseless animal.
The baby goat that was injured was the doeling, the other two are bucklings. Things did not look good. She could not use or move her back legs. Her hooves turned backwards and she could not stand on them. We were just heartbroken. I figured we would put her down, but Tricia wanted to wait through the weekend so "she could work with her."
Status Update and Prognosis:
The doeling (we need to name her, I guess) is nursing on her mom while laying down, unable to use her back legs.
Having her nurse requires putting her two brothers in a cage as she is lame and can't compete with her rambunctious siblings for her mama's milk. They knock her over.
It is just real sad as she sits on essentially useless back legs.
A silver lining
Tricia has been performing physical therapy on the baby. In Tricia's rehab center, the patient has shown some improvement! Each day she is making strides. She can now get up and stand on her own. Although one leg looks lame and she just drags it, it appears that she is just beginning to try to take some first steps.
She has a LONG way to go and we still don't know the full extent of her injuries or prognosis, but it looks like we won't need to put her down. Here is Tricia with the patient. Tricia has patience and nurturing abilities that I just don't have.
Tonight we walked into the barn and the little crippled goat had gotten up on her own. That's progress! Tricia put her siblings in the cage and let the little goat nurse on Annie. She drank milk while standing on wobbly injured legs.
We're seeing small improvement every day and we'll just have to wait a bit and see how things turn out. We've learned a lesson through this, though. We always talk about how it is good to have a variety of animals on the pasture. Chickens eat what cows don't eat. Goats eat what cows don't eat. All eat grass and poop to fertilize the grass, which, in turn, grows more grass. It is a beautiful cycle that God created. It does, however, require some management as cows don't have much regard for their smaller brethren. As the goats get older, they learn to stay out of the cows' way. We learned from now on to keep the babies away from the cows until they get their 'street smarts.' We'll keep you posted on our patient.
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