A great Change

As a piece of sad news which afflicted us a few weeks ago in November, our milking cow Honey was injured when we were transporting her back from the farm where she was being bred to an American Milking Devon bull. She was down for several days, and I could tell that her leg was swollen. I used a tuning fork and pressed it against her bones to check for fractures, and as far as I could tell it was a soft-tissue injury. I used comfrey and Arnica both topically and homeopathic ally, as well as massage and applications of ice. After about a week of nursing her as she lay unable to stand up, she showed great improvement and was beginning to try to move around again and was making efforts to stand up. Then one day we came out to check on her and do the chores, and she had died. We think perhaps she had a blood clot, as she was showing improvement and died very suddenly.

Then a few days later our little goat Chocolate died. This was a surprise because she hadn't been particularly ill--but it was also not quite so surprising because she was the kid that Ellie would not nurse, and she was weak at birth and could not stand up. As she was growing she was never as healthy as her twin.

The other kid would play and jump and was sleek and fat, but poor little Chocolate was always sickly and bloated and would stand around looking listless. I gave her cod liver oil and kelp and citrus and special treats from the garden, but she continued to look miserable. I often would massage her rumen, which was always bloated and wormed her regularly.

Then, three days after Honey died, we came out to do the chores and little Chocolate was no where to be seen. We found her stretched out on the hay, as if she had been laying down to sleep and didn't wake up.

In my favorite goat book by Pat Colby, Natural Goat Care, she says, "Unthrifty kids should not be raised. Any kid that does not stand up unaided after about twenty minutes is suspect--unless there is a reason for its debility....A kid that is weak for no very good reason should be allowed to die quietly or be dispatched, nature will have her reasons."

We are sad, but we know this was how it was supposed to be.