Goat trouble

B.G. on the day of her birth

I have two goats—Missy, age 10, who has been feeble, slow, stiff, and hard to keep weight on since The Great Collapse of 2010, and B.G., age 4, who foundered a couple of years ago and whose chronic lameness has been repeatedly misdiagnosed (I blame myself and my vets: none of us did enough, and all of us were baffled until my lightbulb moment a few weeks ago. Had she been a horse, I never would have missed the signs!). She has been a little off for years but, with corrective trimming and a restricted diet, I hope to get her sound. Today, though, I feel a bit despairing.

I have one goat who has lived half her life in low-grade pain and doesn't show any dramatic signs of improvement and another who is prematurely decrepit and who may or may not continue to have a high quality of life as we go into the next cold season. Missy moves around less and less. This summer, she rests 90% of the time. She no longer has the confidence to venture into the big pasture, she is afraid of phantoms, and she walks more stiffly than before. She looks like an old woman.

I have another goat who may get better but who will never be the same—a goat who will be lonely when her companion dies—a goat who cannot, in good conscience, be sold or given away.

I don't know what I'll do for B.G. when Missy goes. I don't know how I'll console her, and I only hope that she'll be sound enough at that time to go in with the mules. I hope she'll accept them as the next best thing.

M