Sunday, January 11, 2015

Update

It is with a sad heart that I have to share that we lost Bonnie last night. Things never got better with her and we finally called in the vet, something we almost never do. Without going into too much detail, Bonnie had extensive internal damage from trying to kid and had to be euthanized. We're not sure if it was from trying to deliver the large stillborn, if it was something I did when trying to help her, or if it was our waiting to see if, given some time, she could deliver the third baby on her own. I asked the vet what I could do to prevent something like this in the future but she really didn't have an answer. I keep beating myself up, thinking "maybe if," but the truth is we had to intervene as she was not able to deliver that second baby and would have died from that. I've helped mama goats with difficult deliveries before and never had this happen. After checking our records, we also realized that Bonnie has had trouble kidding and/or having her kids live to adulthood so it might just have been genetics. Regardless, it was still hard to lose her as she was a good goat, with a sweet personality. Knowing that death is part of the circle of life doesn't make it any easier.
Neo this morning after his bottle. Notice the milky lips.
 (I'll try to get a better picture later this week)
On a better note, Bonnie's orphan is alive, energetic, and seems perfectly healthy. I've named him Neo (Matrix inspiration) since, out of the three kids in the litter, he was "the chosen one" who made it. He took right to his bottle and will now be getting bottles four times a day.

4 comments:

David said...

Cherie, so sorry to hear that Bonnie didn't make through this year's birthing. It's one of the difficult things about having animals on the homestead. I'm hoping and praying that the rest of the birthing will be without drama events like this one.

Have the best day that you can.

Renaissance Teacher said...

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about Bonnie. I'm a suburban gal, myself so I have no experience with this type of thing; however, I know how precious all my pets are to me and how sad I was when I lost my bunny last year. I hope everyone else makes it through okay.

Cherie said...

David, thanks for the good thoughts. Winter kidding is sometimes rough.

Cherie said...

Renaissance Teacher, thanks for the condolences. My roots are actually urban so this past decade has been quite a change for me. Animals, whether pets or farm, all have distinct personalities so it's hard to lose them. Sorry to hear about your bunny. My daughter had a pet rabbit for 10 years - I kind of inherited him when she went to college - and he was a sweet thing and sorely missed.