We have eight goats. Shamrock and Daisy were our first. They are half-sisters and around the same age, so I believe they have different mothers. The other adult is Pepe. He is a little more goat-smelling than the girls. There is a more pungent aroma to him. Then we have Lola who is— in goat years— in her late teens. She is Shamrock’s first kid and possesses quite a guttural call. Then you have our newest crew that consists of Cutie-Pie (I prefer to call her Dandelion since she’s Daisy’s), Cow, Penelope, and Bat Girl. I had no part in naming them, so do remind me how weird these names are, for the boys named them all… We have all taken an unfair liking to Cutie-Pie because she is the shortest and chubbiest. Unhappily, we will not be keeping any of the kids because there would be some unwanted family-mixing next time we let Pepe into the girls’ pen for the breeding season.
We have worked out a trade with two customers. Each is going to take two girls; one from each mom. This saddens me quite a bit. I wished that both siblings would be with one another so they could keep each other company, but one of the buyers decided that they wanted the biggest ones (Cow and Penelope) who happen to be from both moms. I am even more saddened because this buyer plans on raising them for meat, but what can you do? I can’t help but visualize the big ones on a plate at a dinner table whenever I visit the pen to feed them. Thankfully, the other buyers do not plan on doing the same thing. Jared and I are still sad to have to eventually let go of all of them, but that is life on a farm.
Speaking of the Circle of Life, one of our Brahma chicks passed away yesterday. She was sick, and both of her eyes were closed from an infection. (I have a hunch that it was caused by the water that got moldy from being near the heating lamp.) We quarantined her from the rest of the chicks in a cardboard box with an automated water dish, food, and a heat source. We fed her medicine and checked for breathing every hour. She was very tired and slept for the whole day. When the sun started to set, I took her into my room for the night because it gets cold outside. The next morning I found her drowned in the water dish. There’s no sugarcoating it… My dad tried to comfort me by saying that Sowie would gladly devour her, but that (of course) only made it a little sadder. I was terrified to find the next day that another chick had a closed eye. We immediately quarantined her as well. This time, we found antibiotic cream and dabbed her eye with it. Within minutes, her eye was open! I thought, if only we had found the cream when the other chick was alive.
On the farm, I realize a lot of "what-ifs" arise every day. The farm is a huge experiment, and with it come many tinier experiments. Emotional bonds are created only to be cut, and lives are risked to save others. On the outside, the farm may look happy and together— and it is most times— but sometimes we have our moments of sadness and anger. They are moments like these that teach us that from our mistakes and our obliviousness can grow understanding and improvement.
-Lauren