Hundred Acre Woods

Dear reader, If you have read the posts of Poppy, or sister Lori than you have already heard the news about the loss that struck the family about our dear Manny. Manny was our breeding buck, and this was our first breeding season with him. But if you have not heard then I will tell you the story.

    Well mom woke me in the middle of the night saying there was screaming coming from the barn( now I can understand if you are immagining some blood curdling scream that sounds like that of a woman in destress but I can assure you its not ).   I found out first hand what it sounds like,  it sounded like the mix between a dog howling and a bull elk in rutt.  We thought that there was a predator out in the barn after the animals, but we were wrong.  We followed Dad out to the barn him armed with a pistol, and Mom huddling behind. As we aproached the barn the cries stopped and we found Manny laying on his side with his stomach so bloated he looked like a preagnant cow ( The poor guy ). At first glance I ( a very inexperienced farmer with my only real education on how to deal with these problems coming from the 4-H books I have ) knew what the problem was, bloat. I had heard about this sort of thing before and so much of it was horror stories from the other goat owners I had been learning from. Well this was a horror of my own. Not quite knowing what to do we called all the vets in the phone book. But all of them were too tired or just didnt want to come out at 1 or 2 in the morning.   So having no other options we sought the help of the goat owners I have been taking ( sort of ) apprenticeship under. We called them in very low hopes that they would even answer. But by the grace of God they did. Well I ( in a major state of panic ) asked them what to do and I went out with a length of fridge hosing and a cup of oil, and dad and I went to work on him.  We tried twice each time trying to set the tube in Mannys stomach. After those attempts failing we decided to give it one more shot. It started working, he was belching and started to breathe a little bit more normaly, his stomach was finaly loosening up and he all of the sudden he just stopped. Stopped everything. Stopped breathing and we tried to get him to start breathing again because it had worked before, but this time there was no bringing him back. He was gone.

       What was hardest for me was that he died in my arms. Which is one of my reasons for not having posted about this sooner.  I never knew what it realy meant to have someone realy die in your arms.  This was realy a very hard thing for me, he was a very improtant member to the farm and even more an important member to the family. His was the first real death on the farm, besides a few little ducklings that didnt make it. It seems that ever since we moved here we have had one stroke after another of bad luck. What with Mr Smith and the ducks just dissapearing, and now Manny. I guess life is just throwing us curveballs lately, just one after another.

       Well hopefully the next time you read this it will be about happier circumstances

       Sarah Daisy