Ashley, to this point in my goat life, was my favorite.  Of the hundreds of animals that where born under the Kort’s herd name there is no doubt she was my favorite, and she was just meant to spend her life with me.

She was born out of a yearling doe with an extra teat.  Now as you may guess this is a significant fault for a dairy animal.  Animals with extra teats are routinely culled because they are so hard to milk.  I had sold her mother to someone as a sound kid only to have the animal returned to me when she developed this extra teat at about five months old.  Sometimes the abnormality develops as the kid matures. I returned the buyer’s money and was left with this doe with a defect.  I called the veterinarian out and he did some minor surgery to try to remove it.  He wasn’t sure that he had done any good and told me I should probably sell her now and not waste any more time on her.  I decided to see how things turned out.

I bred this doe; her name was Cassia to a new young buck I had just purchased with a really nice pedigree whose name was Hector.  The next spring, right on cue Cassia gave birth to a pair of kids; a buck and a doe, the doe was of course Ashley. Unfortunately for Cassia the extra teat turned out to be huge problem, she couldn’t be milked on the one side and developed mastitis and she had to be culled.

 Ashley was a bit odd when she was first born, she seemed have a little bit of a neurological short circuit.  She would circle slightly to the left, she would stumble, and she would tilt her head a bit. The next time the vet was out to the farm I pointed her out to him and he watched her for a few minutes and said, “Well, she’s about 75% there.”  When she was about a month old a young family came to the farm wanting to buy some doe kids for their children.  The little boy wanted Ashley.  I told them about her little tick and that she seemed fine except for this and they took her and another doe home with them.

Within two weeks Ashley was back at my house.  The problem wasn’t her tick; it was that she refused to stay in the pen they had built for the goats.  They would find Ashley always up by the sundeck, or waiting by the garage door for someone to get home.  She wanted people company and didn’t think too much of her goaty companion.  I gave them another kid and Ashley came home to me to stay. I think that was her plan all along, after all she never escaped from my goat pen.

By the time Ashley was three months old the neurological tick had resolved itself.  She also began to show all the potential that would make her such a winner later on in her life. At her first show at three months old she was first. 

 The best thing about Ashley was she just plain liked me.  As a kid she would like nothing better than to just curl up in your lap and fall asleep.  This got to be a bit difficult as she matured so she finally decided lying next to you with her head on your lap was just as good.  She always wanted to be loved. She always wanted to know what you were doing.  She was curious, intelligent, and had just enough attitude to be a bit feisty.

She started to win big as a two-year-old milking doe, losing her age class just once in eight shows and winning Reserve Grand Champion twice.  People were starting to notice her.  The winning was great, of course that’s why you go to shows, but she was just plain fun to have around the show ring.  She acquired a love of junk food, anything we were eating she wanted to try.  Pretzels, popcorn and potato chips, she loved them all.  It was as a two year old that she acquired her nickname, Oou-dee, I opened a bag of some sort of chips and she heard the noise of the bag opening.  So she stuck her nose through the pen toward me begging for a treat and made a noise that sounded to me just like Oou-dee.  Of course I gave her a chip and the nickname stuck, and of course she continued to make the noise whenever she wanted my attention.

Ashley “finished” her championship as a four-year-old milker, going undefeated in her age class and winning three Grand Championships and one time Best in Show.  Some does don’t like to be shown but Ashley was always agreeable, in fact she was so correctly built that she almost showed herself.

As well as pretzels, popcorn and potato chips Ashley loved bread and rolls.  Ray would feed her hot dog rolls, not the best diet I know but to Ashley there was no better treat, she would somehow manage to put an entire roll in her mouth in one bite.  And she was sure that two or three would fit if only we would let her try.  We feed our goats with what is called a keyhole feeder.  It’s a sanction with a wide opening on the top and is narrow on the bottom.  The wide opening allows the goat to put her head through and the narrow slot is for their neck, there is a gutter for feed on the bottom.  When you would come through with something Ashley would want, need, or absolutely had to have she would start at the first keyhole and you would give her a treat.  Then you would work your way down the line of keyholes to give the other girls a treat.  Ashley would show up at about every third keyhole begging for a treat, and of course you would have to give her one.  She is the only goat I have ever had that has figured this out, if you show up more often you may get more treats.

Her winning way continued as she aged.  In fact as she got older she got better.  Most goats start to fall apart once they get over five years old, Ashley just piled on the awards.  As a seven and eight year old doe she was shown seven times, she was seven times best alpine and four times best in show.  People have told me that when I arrived with Ashley during those two years they knew before the show started who would win the alpine breed.

Ashley was at her best when I was at my worst, and it helped me make it though this difficult time in my life.  I had been involved in a bad car accident and was going through surgery after surgery trying to fix the damage.  This was when she was unbeatable; many times someone else would have to show her as I was having difficulty walking at the time.  She gave me something to look forward to other than another doctor’s visit or surgery.

As an eight-year-old doe she was appraised at 91, an excellent score, with all four categories of the scorecard rated as excellent.  For those not in the goaty world this is a very rare score, fewer than 1% of all animals score at 90 or better and fewer than 0.5% score over 90.

Unfortunately about the only thing Ashley didn’t do was to give me doe kids.  She had eighteen kids over her life and only four of them were does.  One of those does was sterile; another of those does died when she was a promising four-year-old of complications following kidding.  The other two were nothing but a pale shadow of their mother both in appearance and personality.  I kept two of her buck kids and sold several others to be herd sires for other people.  In fact her son Andy is now the old man in my herd.

 Ashley was retired from the show ring after that, and going to shows was never quite as much fun.  I’ve had other champions but I’ve never had the dominant doe that she was and I’m not sure that I ever will again. 

Ashley was bred for the last time at age ten, giving me a single buck that I later sold.  After that I wanted to give her a true retirement, eat, sleep, and be happy.  Of course I continued to give her junk food treats and she seemed in excellent health and to thoroughly enjoy her retirement for the next three years.

 In the summer of her thirteenth year that all changed.  She started to first regurgitate a bit, then she seemed to get a little bloated.  She began to vomit, a very unusual and dangerous event for a goat.  The end came within a week.  She suddenly began to have episodes of rather severe bloating that I treated with medication.  One day the medication didn’t work and I tried to pass a thin tube down into her stomach to relieve the gas; I couldn’t get the tube to pass into her stomach.  I had done this in the past and had had no problem but this was different.  I called the vet out and he couldn’t pass the tube either.  He was saying something about a mass that I just wasn’t hearing because I was crying as I stroked my Oou-dee.  He was saying something else about exploratory surgery, I didn’t really hear that either.  That day was my birthday and I spend most of it with her head cradled in my lap crying on her and begging her to be well.  My rational brain knew she was failing and in pain, but I was a bit of a coward and perhaps a bit selfish and I couldn’t call the vet out to put her down. Ashley died the next day.  I cried for hours then as I’m crying now.

Goats are wonderful and special creatures; often given a bad reputation for their curiosity and intelligence.  They are not easy to keep in fences. They nibble on everything; more from curiosity than from hunger.  They are difficult to catch if they don’t want to be caught.  They also have a way to get into your heart; leaving a large void when the time comes for them to go.

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BLOSSOM

People tell me they like to hear goat stories so let me tell you about Blossom. There had been a late snowstorm.  It was March and we had had a classic late season nor’easter, dumping a good foot of wet snow.  I went into the barn several days after the storm and I could smell immediately that there had been a birth, (yes there is a very distinct smell to a birth.)  There was Rosie, a friendly and very sweet doe with a big strapping kid at her side. I thought it strange that there was only a single kid because Rosie had been so very big only the day before.  But both mother and baby seemed just fine and content.  I moved the pair into a separate stall and went about the morning chores.

I finished the chores and I still don’t know what made me look out the door where the goats go out into the pasture but I did.  There lying in the snow was a tiny white and black kid with a pink nose. I don’t know what had made Rosie leave the warm barn while she was giving birth, or what made her ignore this kid while caring for the other but at that moment none of that mattered.  I had assumed the kid to be dead.  Ice had formed on her still wet hair and even her tears had frozen.  I reached down and picked up the poor baby, I saw no sign of life as I scooped her up, no visible breathing and no movement, and she was icy cold.  But as I held her in my hand I felt a tiny heartbeat.  I quickly shoved the tiny kid inside my coat and hurried into the house.

We had a fire burning in the stove in the basement.  I placed the kid in a cardboard box and took some warm moist compresses and put them on either side of her and covered her with a thick towel.  Now the trick to saving a “cold” kid is to warm them up slowly so that you don’t stress them too greatly.  But I didn’t think she could come back; in all my years of raising goats I have never had a kid this cold.  I warmed up some colostrum, the mother’s first milk, and gently inserted a tube down the kid’s throat and into her stomach.  I gave her just four ounces of milk.  I rubbed her to dry and stimulate her; I massaged and gently flexed her icy cold legs.  For a long time nothing seemed to be happening, she still didn’t move, and her breathing was incredibly shallow.  After 15 minutes or so of this treatment she began to shiver and I saw her take her first noticeable breath.  The breathing became deeper and her legs began to twitch.  I changed the compresses and gave her four more ounces of milk.

Blossom began to improve rapidly at that point.  She began to bleat softly, her eyes seemed to focus and she began to respond when I would touch her.  Two hours after I had pulled her from the snow she was making a small sucking sound and she took a bit of milk from a bottle.  At three hours she was standing in her cardboard box looking for all the world like the healthy kid she was.  As an adult her only noticeable reminder of her ordeal was her ears were slightly deformed from the frostbite she had suffered.

Blossom is gone now, having died of old age after a long and happy life.  I still don’t know what made me look out into the snow that morning; or why she managed to come back after such a terrible birthday.  Blossom, like her mother, was a sweet and friendly doe and I’m glad I had the chance to know her.

The Birth

 MMaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!  Some day soon we will be greeted this way as we walk into the barn.  Now our goats usually “talk” a little bit to us, but they are rather quiet creatures all in all.  When the greeting is a bit of a loud panicked yell it can only mean one thing, a birth is imminent.  March is the month the kidding usually starts. (A baby goat is called a kid, the act of a goat giving birth is called kidding.)  Goats have a five-month gestation period.  By the time the does reach the end of their pregnancy they are extremely heavy and uncomfortable.  A 150- pound doe usually gives birth to twin kids that weight 8 pounds each, but triplets are not unusual.  The doe will become restless during the day she will give birth, pacing, getting up and lying down, and digging “nests” in the bedding.  She will become more vocal, some does will absolutely panic if you try to leave them.  Finally she will begin to have contractions, once the contractions become heavy the doe will deliver in about an hour, (Apologies to all you moms out there.).

The kid’s front feet should appear first, tiny soft white hooves bathed in the fluid of birth.  Lying on top of the hooves is a tiny muzzle, the tongue sticking out slightly, the nostrils twitching as the young kid draws its first breathe. The doe strains harder and you see the bridge of the nose, then the eyes.  This is the widest part of the head and the doe is bearing down with all she has now.  The head clears, the shoulders pop through and the rest of the kid follows with a rush.  The doe quickly stands and turns to her young, cleaning the kid with her enthusiastic licking.  She will make a sound I have only ever heard them make immediately after birth, she will “chuckle,” a short little and rapidly repeated bleat, which to my ears could only mean a happy welcome.  The kid sneezes a few times to further clear its nose of mucus and then begins to bleat back to the calls of its mother.  The mother pushes gently with her nose as she continues to clean, and the kid, only minutes old and with shaky legs, will try to stand.  It isn’t always pretty, and it isn’t always on the first try, but a healthy kid will stand in the first twenty minutes or so after birth.

Now you can tell the kid is on a quest.  It’s looking for something but it’s not quite sure what it is.  They take a few stiff legged steps toward its mother, or you, or a hay bale, anything that may be able to help them with this quest.  At this point I will usually steer them toward their mother.  They are usually making a little sucking noise, their tongue sticking out slightly, shaped like a little “u”.  After a few mistakes, such as their mother’s hair, a person’s thumb, or their twin’s ear, the quest is successful.  After a few sucks on their mother’s teat the eyes open wide and the tiny tail starts to flick back and forth.  Mother and baby calm down as the kid nurses.  The rapid “chuckle” of the doe and the frantic bleats of the kid are replaced by a quiet deeper mmmh of the doe.  All is well with mother and baby and there’s a new arrival at DanaRay Farm.  Maybe it’s the next champion, but for now it’s just amazing to see the little miracle that never grows old…

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