06/18/2018
My favorite goat, Cream, is pretty sick....
Let me preface this anecdote with: we are first generation homesteaders. None of our parents owned farm animals as adults. We are forging in unknown territory. We don’t come by this stuff naturally. I wasn’t raised this way. Lol. Ok. Keep reading.
These past two weeks have been hard on us. It’s been a picture to me, of the Lord’s care for me... I know she’s not a sheep, but listen:
She somehow got scours (that’s goat talk for diarrhea). No one else in the herd has it. So who knows how. We had various processes to do, based on my handy dandy goat health flow chart. From the experience we do have (a whole three years!) we know it can be deadly, quickly. This is my favorite goat.
Being the queen of the herd, she’s the most stubborn, resilient, and spunky. She’s not easily lead. And here, I have to carefully tend to her. Getting her to come to the loafing pen (a small pen near the feed barn, in the picture) on day one was hard. She was stubborn and didn’t feel good. I think I won her over only by her lack of energy.
She refused to drink her electrolytes. I begged her to let me help her. I went back to her five and six times that day to pull her up to standing, feed her, clean her matted rear and make her drink. She resisted me at every turn. She just didn’t feel good!
She really wanted to be with her herd and called to them relentlessly. They didn’t come. They barely looked up from grazing. I cried.
I let her out each evening to be with her buddies. (The handy dandy goat flow chart indicated it wasn’t contagious.)
Day two, she was a little easier to make her stay still to clean, and easier to get into the pen to give her supplements and monitor her eating. It wasn’t a walk in the park, but it wasn’t American Gladiator this time.
After that, she only resisted me slightly. I talked to her and stroked her and begged her each evening, after spraying off her matted tail: Please don’t die, Cream. I’ve washed your butt too many times for you to quit on me.
Then today.
Today, two weeks plus since I’ve been trying to help her heal (I don’t know what else to do- the flow charts are out of boxes and arrows!) she runs to me. She waits in the evening for her butt to be washed, and steps up on the gate in the loading pen, willingly opening her mouth for whatever I want to put in. She trusts me, seeks me for her care, and stands still, even turns her rear toward me when she hears the water turn on.
She seeks me out! She waits for me in our special place. She’s ready to be tended. Like she knows she needs it.
And then.... and then! Her friends see her waiting for me, and want to know what is it that keeps her there.
I won’t draw the obvious analogy for you. You don’t need me to!
But I will say... in only two weeks, my dearest goat has become ever so much dearer to me. Because of sickness. Because of a huge pain in the rear (literally) of discipline and extra work to tend to her. Without the sickness, she and I would still be fine... she’s my favorite, and she comes when I call and all that.... but now she seeks me. She trusts me deeply, and my heart toward her is fonder. I care more deeply! For a GOAT! What???
Thank you, Lord.... I am grateful to learn from a stubborn goat named Cream.
