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"If I had it to do over I would have SHOT her?" subtitled The Miracle of Stretch by Tim Pierce Stretch is one of our nannies. She is definitely a percentage boer cross, but we have no idea how much. Therefore, she is just a mutt. Debbie gave her the name Stretch because her legs are longer than the rest of the herd and she has an uncanny ability to reach higher into the trees than any other goat on the ranch (all 40 acres of it). November 18th, 2001, she had a set of triplets, 1buck and 2 does. She was managing to raise the triplets just fine, with no help needed or wanted from us. Then it happened... Sunday December the 9th, as we were working in the barn a peculiar thing happened. We were feeding the one and only bottle baby we had at the time, when the triplets came to us looking hungry and crying for their mother. Those three triplets had never come near enough for us to even attempt to catch them, but suddenly they were trying to eat out of our hand. That was our first clue. Naturally we fed them, as we do any hungry baby, but immediately our minds started wondering, "Where is mama?" A couple of hours passed and we continued with our chores. Some of the other nannies came back to the barn to feed their kids but Stretch never returned. Debbie decided it was time to look for her. She took to the 4-wheeler to cover ground fast. No luck. She walked the creek bottom. No luck. After about 2 hours of looking she was baffled. Had someone stolen our high dollar ($35.00) goat or had she wandered away? That was impossible with the fence we have but you never know. Finally Deb says "There is one more place that has not been checked". Sure enough there she was - left front foot stuck in the fork of a small tree. She was motionless and Debbie's first thought was, "She is dead". She stood looking for a brief time and noticed she was breathing. Immediately Deb starts to scream, frantically trying to separate the forks, remove Stretch and summon me all in one breath. Panic had set in. Deb runs to the barn screaming for me to help so I begin to question: "Where is she? What is her status? What do we need to retrieve her?" Upon gathering as much information as I could, I decided to get the 4-wheeler and the trailer so I can haul her out of the creek bottom. By the time I arrived at the scene of the "crime", Deb was already drenching her with Ensure, Gatorade and vitamins. My assessment soon reveals her front leg still in the tree fork caught at the ankle. It appeared she had stood there for 24 to 48 hours until her hind legs finally gave out. All the signs of a major struggle were apparent. No grass anywhere, she had scraped for so long everything was dug up. Her side at the front shoulder blade was completely bald from her rubbing the hair and hide down to raw meat. (sorry.) It appeared that her left eye was gone from a small tree stob growing at just the wrong place, and her frantic fight to free herself. The first thing I decided to do was to remove the foot from the tree. This was no small task because this thing was not only stuck but she had swelled into it. Eventually the tree gave up. When the foot came free, we saw the only movement out of this goat that was to take place for the next several weeks. She jumped, squealed and fell flat out, never to move again. Now we had to get her up the creek bank far enough to get the trailer over to her. These goats are heavy, even for 2 people to move even with Deb's adrenaline pumping, but we finally got her there. Now to the barn, or at least we thought so, anyhow. With Deb and Stretch in the trailer behind a two wheel drive 4-wheeler and a steep hill to climb, (you guessed it) the 4 wheeler would only spin its wheels. OK, it is time for the Big Boy to pull out the Big Guns. "Debra Sue, you continue to feed her, "I'll be back". (It is a long walk back to the barn for a fat boy.) The next time they saw me I was riding in luxury: "BIG JOHN" to the rescue. I hooked up big john to the 4-wheeler and trailer with a log chain. "BIG JOHN" don't take no lip! So, with Big John in the lead and a log chain tying us all together - 95 horses, a fat boy, a 4-wheeler, a red trailer, one goat and Debbie - went the the England Creek ICU. We had only been in the goat world for just over a year and were not prepared for just this level of event. First we had to decide where to take her - the barn, a kidding pen, the garage or maybe the tool shed / hay barn? The decision was made to put her as close to the house as possible, because she most certainly would require a lot of attention. We settled her into to the garage right next to the back door. Debbie said, "Call the vet and tell him to bring an IV, for surely she is completely dehydrated." The vet, Mr. Grady Ellis, shows in about 20 minutes. He looks at her, hooks her up to the IV and sets back to wait for it to run through. Deb finally goes inside to get something from the kitchen and Grady says, "She will never make it." I was agreeing with him just as Deb walked back into the ICU unit, and Grady said, "If she's still breathing there is hope." "Thank you Grady!" First off, let us all understand that Debbie and I are weekend ranchers. We live in Fort Worth and the "RANCH" is in Jacksonville, Texas, 146 miles door to door. Not any easy jaunt to commute to work daily. If it were not for our good friend Mr. James Kyle, and a caring vet in Grady, there would not be a "rest of the story". We had one almost-dead nanny goat and 4 kids to bottle feed, half a tank of gas, it was dark and we had on sunglasses. (sorry Blues Brothers.) "So what do we do now?" The IV was finished, she wouldn't swallow any more Ensure, she had been injected with Dex and Banamine. Suddenly, I didn't have a $35.00 goat any longer! Luckily we both had taken off work from the Saturday before Christmas until January 2nd. So the plan was formulated that I would come back on Monday and Wednesday nights and Deb on Tuesday and Thursday nights. We would tend to Stretch and feed bottle babies each night and again the next morning at 4:00 am, so we could get back to Fort Worth and work by 7:00 am. James Kyle and the vet handled the mid day tending and feeding. Of course, we were there all weekend through Monday morning. This continued for 2 weeks. We tried to prop Stretch up and roll her over often to keep away pneumonia. We fed her eight ounces of Ensure and sixteen ounces of Gatorade at least 4 times per day. We also quickly learned that a goat with high levels of stress needs to be wormed immediately. Somehow, by the Christmas holidays, she was still alive but had yet to move a muscle except to breath and her feeding had only been by force. We had to use a drencher and just pour it in until she was forced to swallow. Friday December 21st I left work early to go to the ranch. On the way I decided to go by the vets office and talk what-ifs. Our discussion concluded that major paralysis was involved and there would probably be no recovery. I made the decision as I left the vet's office that by Sunday night, if she were not showing signs of improvement, I would dig a hole. Before that I had to do something, but WHAT? As I pulled into the drive, it was like a light switch went on - give her a chance to respond. I went to the barn and gathered up a cinch from a saddle, an old blanket and a couple of ropes. I was going to make a sling and stand her up. This way I could at least see if she would hold her head up. BINGO! She could do it. "Ok", I thought to myself, "lets see how the weekend goes". I went inside to make bottles for the 4 babies and get the Ensure and Gatorade. When I got back to the ICU with bucket and bottles in hand, Checkers, our cat went with me. Stretch tried to hook the cat. "By God your going to make it" I shouted out loud. She must have thought I was nuts because she even looked up at me. So fat boy sat down and fed Stretch her Ensure and Gatorade through his tears (don't tell anyone). Next, I went to the barn and fed the babies. Once again the light went off. What if I try some pellets and took her babies to her? So, out the barn door we went like the Pied Piper with triplets following. Into the garage we went and the reunion began. You would have thought it was a high school reunion. She sniffed them. They climbed on her. So I left them alone for a while. After all I had 103 other critters to tend to. I returned about an hour later. All had settled down. The babies were resting in a heap. To my surprise, Checkers was standing in the chair at Stretches face. They were both nudging each other. A new friendship had evolved. This new friendship would come to be a good one in the weeks to come. It was obvious that she was tired, so I took her down from the sling and laid her down. When I did, I put a bucket of goat pellets in front of her and she actually ate her first solid food in 2 weeks. Not much mind you, but some. This was the improvement I needed to see. So, there was no hole dug on Sunday night. Now I am left with these questions: 1. How much is too much to spend on a $35.00 goat? 2. Can goats tell you when something is wrong with another? 3. Should we always look in the last place first? 4. Do you think she sensed the conversation I had with Grady about digging a hole? 5. Can a nanny still know her kids after not seeing them for 2 weeks when they no longer smell like her? 6. Can a goat understand the commitment people make for their well being?
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Email us at: EnglandCreekRanch@ecrboers.com
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