A blind goat, a dry goat...and a dead one.

It sounds like the start of a bad joke but no fooling this is what has been happening around here. They say when it rains it pours and we have been flooded with goat problems.

Nibbles in better days...before we called her Winky.

It started innocently enough. The other day I brought Nibbles up to the milk stand, took one look at her, and jumped back shrieking and clutching the dog.

"Holy tomatoes, Nibbles, what the heck?"

"I think I got something in my eye...." She said.

It was horrible. Her face was swollen up one side, her eye was red, and her pupil was cloudy. The dog and I refused to get near her.

I consulted experts.

"It's pink eye." He said.

"There is no way." I replied. "I think it's some kind of injury"

"Pink eye. Look it up."

I did. It was. That guy is always right. Treatment is being applied and Nibbles is separated from everyone - that would be all the other goats who she absolutely hates. She is now standing out there screaming to be reunited because with the herd because, and I quote..."Maybe those other goats aren't so bad."  Tough too bads, Nibs, you are an infectious carrier and you have another five days to stand there. Alone.

Next up. Debbie. Dry. Almost entirely dry. Bone dry. Uselessly dry.  I reviewed all the normal reasons for sudden decreased milk production..... Was it too hot? Nope. Bad hay... maybe... more like "normal and not too bad hay." Then I checked her gums and eyelids. Yep. She needed to be wormed. Treatment applied and I got a bale of better hay while I'm waiting for our best hay folks to cut n bale this week.

Then I went out for morning rounds. One of the little cow goats was down. Real down. He wasn't getting up and his body temperature was cold. None of the other goats would get near him. He was hanging in there but he wasn't going to make it. I picked up the sad little bundle and put him in the garage, wrapped in a blanket, and then texted my husband that he might have to "do something" when he got home.  As it turned out the little goat didn't last that long.

So what happened? I have no idea. The best that I can tell is that he might have eaten something weird when they were grazing. We really don't have a lot in on our property that is poisonous... and one of the good things about goats is that they usually just eat a little of this and a little of that.  So they don't normally ingest enough of anything toxic to kill them. Normally. Outside of that I don't have any idea. He went downhill very very fast. Surprisingly fast.  Shockingly fast.

While it has been a challenging week in our goat world we continue to be grateful that this is our first and only goat loss. We think we are amazingly lucky especially when we heard stories of other folks from this spring. It seemed that many, many folks had hard times with an exceptionally difficult kidding season.

So onward and upward. I might, depending, have a rather hilarious, extremely insensitive, and completely inappropriate tale about goat carcass disposal later. You can only imagine. We'll see.

Happy Tuesday everyone! How's it going in your goat world?