Back Porch Farm

“Honey”, I said calmly into the phone, “it appears you left the coop door open. The goats got in, knocked over the chicken feed bins and there is a lot missing. They gorged so heavily that they walked out on their own. You know what happened last time. There is no way I can go.”

And with that sad statement, our annual Rio Chama raft trip was canceled, on the morning of the afternoon we were to leave. The farm was in crisis mode waiting for the life threatening goat bloat to manifest, and we had to bail on our friends who were packed and ready to roll, dependent on us for all the group gear and one shared dinner. We felt numb and way beyond disappointed. And we were in deep fear for the lives of our goats.

Our friend Skye arrived at 9am to help us prep for leaving and clean the house. It was serendipitous that it was she, as Skye used to run an animal rescue farm for many years. Randy arrived back home and Skye kept us grounded, doing what obviously needed doing without direction, while Randy and I stood around paralyzed. “Um, so what do we do?” we said over and over. I got on the internet to research remedies, and emailed my goat mentors in TX. Bloat is very serious and often fatal, and we only had a few hours before it would raise it’s ugly head. I called all the vets in a 100 mile radius (as if I thought they had suddenly decided to treat goats after all), looking for a drenching gun. Next, all the feed stores from Alamosa, CO to Santa Fe, NM. I was ready for a long drive, but there was no drenching gun to be found. I still had the 2cc syringe I had fed our buckling colostrum with, so decided to improvise. I mixed up an olive oil/baking soda slurry, grabbed the turkey baster and syringe, pulled on my overalls, and lead Randy out to the barn. He was feeling horrible, although we both new it was possible the coop door HAD been latched and the goats had worked it open. In any case, I was careful to keep all guilt trips under wraps as he was doing a fabulous job without my help.

We grabbed Fiona first and got her on the milking stand and in the head gate. I mentally reviewed the YouTube video I had watched, and the drawings and photos I had seen on line, grasped Fi’s mouth, pried it open, and shoved in the turkey baster while Randy tried to squirt the contents of the syringe into the open end of the bulbless baster. Ever played the game Operation? Well that’s a start. Now imagine playing Operation while riding on a bucking bronco. You’re getting closer. Needless to say, more oil got on me and Fi then down her gullet. Straddling her out of the headgate with her butt wedged in a corner was only a slight improvement. As we paused to catch our breaths, Randy said “Look at Hazie!” And there was Miss Hazelnut, demurely lapping up the remaining contents of the mixing cup that was actually slotted for her. “Good Hazel!” we praised. We tried holding the cup for Fiona, but were too late. She had already developed an association of that particular smell to the heavy weight wrestling championship she had just won.

We gathered the train wreck of bowls, cups, baster and syringe, called it “a dose each”, and dragged our oily selves back inside. Meanwhile Skye gave each doe accupressure once an hour. It was obviously helping as they both passed gas and berries after each drenching and accupuncture session.

We brainstormed some possible scenarios: Randy taking Isla to the put in and staying overnight in the BLM cabin (where we were all supposed to be staying tonight with our friends) and contacting me the next morning for a status report…. he and Isla could check permits together Friday morning, as that was his job as a BLM ranger…. if the goats seemed OK, I could drive the trailer with raft and gear down to meet them in time for the 12 noon scheduled launch. We decided this was a decent Plan B, but we would pack the gear together first… just in case I COULD join them. But I was settling in for some serious goat drama over the next 32 hrs and had small hopes of seeing a river this weekend.

A few hours later, Skye and I headed out to try to drench the goats once more. She knew the proper wrestling positions and with her securing each goat (this is a relative term of course), and the removal of the turkey baster link, I was able to get a wee bit of the oil mixture down each of their throats with the syringe alone. But it was hell on earth. That made for an easy decision as I could not do it alone once Randy had left for the river, and I assumed they would need many more drenchings.

We fully canceled our trip and sat down defeated, waiting for our goats to bloat.

But nothing happened. The goats continued to be fine. Had they gotten into the coop after they were already full of hay and therefore ate less than we thought? Had the oil, baking soda and accupuncture thwarted the worst of the reaction? Because the last time this happened, they both experienced explosive, projectile diarrhea for 3 days and came close to dying. But currently out in the barnyard, their sides were not even protruding – the most obvious sign of bloat. Needless to say, the chicken feed bins, now considered a “controlled substance”, have been very inconveniently, moved out of the barn and barnyard, forever.

Scratching our heads in wonder, I asked Skye, who had demonstrated her obvious competence with the goats, how she would feel about farm sitting. We had already canceled on our scheduled farm sitter as neither us nor he was comfortable being left in a potentially precarious position. Skye was fine with it. We called up our friends. “Well”, I said, “It’s gone from a 2% chance to a 95% chance that we can still make it tomorrow.”

“Oh,” they replied. “Great! Um, we already invited another family as we needed the group gear that you would have been bringing.” There was a brief moment of awkwardness as we humbly squirmed our way back onto our own trip with tails between our legs. Food had to be quickly discussed once more and we decided to just BRING FOOD and worry about sorting it out once on the river. We were sure, at least, we would not starve.

We went to bed exhausted, overwhelmed, emotionally drained, extremely relieved, and excited once more for the trip. Skye had had her milking lesson (with all her animal experience, she had never rescued a goat in milk) and farm orientation, and we felt confident she could handle it. But we still had to pack!

(Story continued in Part II)

No bloat here! A perfectly healthy, happy, herd.

Bucky is doing a little teething on his play set.