My daughter goes to a high school with a working farm. She has a Boer X doe named Cosby, who had 2 beautiful doelings :girl: :girl: last Sunday. Yay! Mom and daughters are doing fine. I'll post pics soon.
However, the kidding just before Cosby's was to a scruffy-looking Boer X doe whose owner was then unknown. Mama had one average sized buck, then a larger chunkier guy and then as a surprise to us all, a tiny footling breech buckling. Mama has a sad little udder, her first two sons are doing mostly okay, but the little guy, dubbed Oreo, has very little left to drink after his two stronger brothers are done with mom. When we checked on the goats Tuesday night, Oreo was dehydrated and couldn't even stand. We gave him some drench and tried to milk mom for a little nourishment. We got only a few drops. There was some milk replacer in an open bag that looked pretty disreputable, but it was all we could get at 7:30 in the evening. We took Oreo home and took care of him. the teachers my daughter called warned us that mom might not take him back, but we figured the alternative was that the kid would die without something in his belly. Not okay, we're all for doing what we can.
The goat project students had a meeting today and discussed what was happening with the herd. The neglected mom's owner was there and is done with goats. She's selling them all and "doesn't have time" to care for them. When Oreo was brought up, her decision was to just put him down, or as the teacher suggested, put in in a closed plastic bag or drown him in a bucket. I am so sad to even type this. My daughter objected strongly. She and another student are going to try and nurse him back to health, then sell him, using the profit for his care and boarding at school. No "pet" goats or intact bucks are allowed to stay at school. Otherwise, he'd be there as a show wether. We have no land yet, so he can't come home with us. If we did, we'd keep him.
As I type, Oreo is sleeping in our bed right next to my husband. He won't be there all night; he has a big plastic tub with soft bedding to sleep in. He'll go out to be with the farm goats tomorrow during school hours and come home with either us or the other student every night.
Maybe I don't understand the realities of farming, but destroying an otherwise okay animal for convenience seems oh-so-wrong. I know Oreo has a long way to go. We're going to do what we can for him. What really angers me is that the young woman who owns Oreo's mom presents herself as a fine example of an ag student, yet her goat suffered from terrible neglect.
Thanks for reading along this far. I just had to vent.
However, the kidding just before Cosby's was to a scruffy-looking Boer X doe whose owner was then unknown. Mama had one average sized buck, then a larger chunkier guy and then as a surprise to us all, a tiny footling breech buckling. Mama has a sad little udder, her first two sons are doing mostly okay, but the little guy, dubbed Oreo, has very little left to drink after his two stronger brothers are done with mom. When we checked on the goats Tuesday night, Oreo was dehydrated and couldn't even stand. We gave him some drench and tried to milk mom for a little nourishment. We got only a few drops. There was some milk replacer in an open bag that looked pretty disreputable, but it was all we could get at 7:30 in the evening. We took Oreo home and took care of him. the teachers my daughter called warned us that mom might not take him back, but we figured the alternative was that the kid would die without something in his belly. Not okay, we're all for doing what we can.
The goat project students had a meeting today and discussed what was happening with the herd. The neglected mom's owner was there and is done with goats. She's selling them all and "doesn't have time" to care for them. When Oreo was brought up, her decision was to just put him down, or as the teacher suggested, put in in a closed plastic bag or drown him in a bucket. I am so sad to even type this. My daughter objected strongly. She and another student are going to try and nurse him back to health, then sell him, using the profit for his care and boarding at school. No "pet" goats or intact bucks are allowed to stay at school. Otherwise, he'd be there as a show wether. We have no land yet, so he can't come home with us. If we did, we'd keep him.
As I type, Oreo is sleeping in our bed right next to my husband. He won't be there all night; he has a big plastic tub with soft bedding to sleep in. He'll go out to be with the farm goats tomorrow during school hours and come home with either us or the other student every night.
Maybe I don't understand the realities of farming, but destroying an otherwise okay animal for convenience seems oh-so-wrong. I know Oreo has a long way to go. We're going to do what we can for him. What really angers me is that the young woman who owns Oreo's mom presents herself as a fine example of an ag student, yet her goat suffered from terrible neglect.
Thanks for reading along this far. I just had to vent.