The day before was perfect. Perfect weather...Perfect play day for the babies. Everyone was hoppin' and happy. The farm had life everywhere as we built new pens, played with camera ideas... worked on everything from shelves to latches to perfecting ways to make life easier when you're walking out the door, hands full of bowls and buckets...In short, it was a typical day on the farm.
By evening, as folks left one by one, I took two hours around news time to catch up on emails and reconnect with the world. Around 8 I headed back to the barn where I played for a couple more hours, simply because the window for doing such is fleeting when it comes to goat babies, yet it'saddictive. I want to max out every moment I can. Another round of phone pix showed the world a bunch of happy and healthy, all nestling down for the night. I double checked heat lamps, assigned the pups their duties (1 outside the stalls, 2 outside doors, 1 inside with me). I left the night lights and radio on to keep everyone company. (For the record, my goats are Opry goats. They were birthed and weened on WSM.)
Next morning, the routine starts all over again. Warm meat scraps to mix with chow for the dogs; measure chow for the kids...Suit up in the romper and juggle bowls to the gate; set things on a fence post till you get everyone in place. Open gate: stir, mix, repeat.
Flinging open the barn doors is our favorite morning ritual...Next to goodnight, it's my favorite part of the day...Cause, behind those doors are a bunch of happy, hungry, noisy babies that the dogs can't wait to play with and I can't wait to see. They always make me laugh. It's life loving life, and for anyone who dreads getting out of bed in the mornings, I recommend farm life highly.
Now that the babies are a week old, they prefer buddies to mamas every time but feeding time, so they had curled up together in their igloo, turned toward the heat lamp when last I'd left them. (When you lose a baby you go over every detail, time and time again--Should I have done something different? I share this mental exercise for those who write me suggesting they envy my life. There is a lot to love about this goat thing. But there are tears too. Today was a tearful day.)
With mamas and bucks all waiting at the troughs, I do a double check to make sure all babies are present and counted for. Looking down at the igloo, it was the first thing I saw....Then came the cry that sent the workers in my direction.
A baby had died in the night. How could this have happened? OMG were there toxic fumes in the igloo? Were the others dead too? Turns out, no. They others were still sleeping, nestled perfectly behind. Inside the igloo, it was warm, but not too warm. The warmth was mostly from their own body heat, as the lamp was a good 8 feet away. This was some fluke (only I don't like flukes...That baby was fine yesterday. What in the world happened to my baby?)
Interrupting my flow (which should be to keep focus on the living) I had to stop. (Writer's note: I do not share pictures out of respect young viewers to my FB page, but I do feel the need to write about it. I share that the little girl's body was as perfect in death as it was in life, meaning no trauma, no wounds, no clues...Matter of fact it must've been pre-dawn when it happened, for she was not that cold, only limp and lifeless. Again, you search for every clue in moments like these. These are the things you hash and rehash after your first encounter with death on a farm.)
She was the gray one. Black boots. Spot on the head. Which told me...absolutely nothing. I have 5 others matching the same description. What's more, her mother is not yet aware. She is at the food troughs. As noted in earlier blogs, goats are very independent. Loyal, yes. They take care of their own. But come food time, it's survival first, so as to feed the others next...(They are the original example of putting your oxygen mask over your face before assisting small children. Airlines should use them in their ads.)
With all the rest on standby, waiting for their food, I grab a towel and wrap my precious baby, leaving her face exposed so as to show her to TJ who has stayed back to see why his mama has hollered...(My first thought was, "Maybe they played too rough...They do love their babies. Maybe you can run one to death...At this point, the jury's still out.)
TJ sniffs the baby, then looks at me quizzically. I think he gets it. But I'm not sure. I do the same with Hix, then with Rosey. There'll be one less baby to watch and as I have referenced already, dogs can count.
I place the lifeless body in the back of my Jeep, and proceed to finish the morning's ritual... I think of Jesus's admonition: Let the dead, bury the dead. After all, there is life that still needs me. While all I want to do is rock a dead baby, I don't have that luxury. Life must go on.
We finish the breakfast ritual; I head back to the house. With babies all seen to, now playing once again, all I want now, to tend to my baby, and my heart. I log on to get the number for KORD diagnostic lab--a division of the Elmington Ag Center's operation that is a godsend in times like these. For the sake of farmers everywhere, they provide free diagnostics and autopsies on farm animals, after all, if it's a bug, a parasite, if it HAD have been toxic fumes from a heat lamp near an igloo, I and everyone in the world need to know this. So there is a reason this is state funded and made free to us, as not every farmer has the time or resources to go to the trouble to find out why a baby goat died unexpectedly. I cannot say enough good about KORD.
I gave 'em a head's up I was coming...had the baby in the Jeep (at this point, having no clue as to whose baby she was...While trying to spot it, there was really no way to know for sure, and I had to keep moving.)
The procedure is this (for those of you curious)...You walk in; give them your name; let them know you have a body to deliver. (I have a whole new respect for undertakers at this stage.) They hand you paperwork. (Sadly, I am already in their system, but each new entry is a new case file.) I'm told someone will greet me at the door...Let's hand the baby off first so the doctors can do a cursory overview, while I finish the paperwork. (Ok. Again, another moment I would never photograph, but I misunderstood the direction, and when closed doors at the loading dock were suddenly now open, I assumed they meant for me to come inside, which was a mistake. I wish I had not done that. Won't dwell on it. Let's just say goats are not the only thing they autopsy.)
I scurry to take my bundled, beautiful goat baby back to my Jeep where I rocked her and say a prayer until they came for me. (Pretty sure cattle farmers don't do this; then again, we each gotta do what we gotta do.)
After filling out the paperwork, offering up everything from vet contacts to last clues on ...whatever...whenever...(I have no clue) ...They say someone will be with me shortly.
Within minutes, a lab-coated, licensed person comes to take a few more details, and may I just say, I would not want her job, but God bless her for doing it. Her job is to find out what happened...And to let me know if I did something wrong. She is a scientist, but she also has a heart. I couldn't have asked for a kinder ambassador.
On the drive home (which is now mid Friday rush, so I'm crawling along I-40) I receive a call from the lab. (They give you a short overview first; ask a few more questions; the full report comes later, both to you and your vet, so your vet can explain it to you.) Bottom line: still no clue. There was no blunt trauma. (Hix and TJ are off the hook.) The baby didn't freeze. (Mama feels only slightly better, but not much.) In short, the best they can offer is that the baby is anemic and that it hasn't eaten in hours (i.e no food in the digestive track). Did the mother abandon it? Did it play and forget to eat? What could I have done different? (This is pretty much the only thing I'm asking as I drive through teary eyes...Let the record reflect, there is a lot of guilt that goes with this job.)
For now, we just don't know. Heck, I didn't even know whose baby it was, though sadly, sickly perhaps, I prayed it was one of the twins, simply so the mother would still have something to love.
By evening, the farm seemed back to normal. No one seemed the wiser. We'd brought Rosebud home mid morning, so she was adapting after her stay at a B&B to get her through her heat cycle. My little neighbor Addison had a sleepover, so thanks to her family and friends, the babies were once again, cuddled and played with well into the night (i.e. we all stayed in the barn till almost midnight).
So goes life on the farm. Death is as real as the sunrise. You cannot be angry with it, or you'll rob the living. You must simply process it, allow for it...live with it.
RIP little baby goat. We asked for meaning to our days...Today you delivered in spades.
No comments:
Post a Comment