Our GUT WRENCHING Journey for Answers for our Goat Herd!

Getting It Out

How do I write about something that my brain and heart have not accepted... I have been battling with the idea and I know that writing will help me to accept what has happened but yet I still can't find the words. Still, 5 days have passed and only a small handful of my closest people know what I have been struggling with. And even they don't have a clue to what I have been feeling through it all. I am broken. I have officially shut down and now my health is being affected. I know better! I know I am supposed to pick myself up and wipe off the dust but I keep trying and I keep stumbling. Stumbling with the words, the courage, the ability to move past the most horrific events any farmer can ever face. But I know I have to get it out somehow.

I have many people who follow my YouTube vlog and my Steemit blog that have been wondering and waiting for a more recent update on our goat herd and the situation we have been dealing with. If you are new here and this is the first you have heard please read my other posts to get caught up before diving into the rest of this story.
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@wholesomeroots/another-tragic-loss-but-we-will-get-answers
https://steemit.com/animals/@wholesomeroots/hope-and-fear-trying-to-find-a-way-through-the-storm

So that catches everyone up to Friday morning. Five days ago when things seemed really really bad but I had no idea it could get SO MUCH WORSE!

CAUTION: This may be very hard for some to read. It is very sad and difficult. Do not proceed if you don't want to cry!

5 Days Ago

I was pretty upset that I found two more goats had become sick with the diarrhea that has been plaguing my herd. But I was feeling like I could control it now. After all, Coco had been very sick but after three days of antibiotics was 90% better! She was eating hay and trying to push past me out the barn to escape! So now I knew I had to begin antibiotics immediately and everything would be okay. Right!? Or so I thought...

So I proceeded with everything I had been doing to get the others well and crossed my fingers it would work. One of the goats that became sick was Coco's cousin Rocky. She had bad diarrhea but was alert, active and still eating hay. The other sick one was Sugar, the twin to Spice who we lost at the beginning of July to the same symptoms, but that was before we knew how serious it was. Sugar had the diarrhea and was lethargic and not eating, I was scared. So I continued checking on my three sick goats every hour throughout the day. Giving fluids and herbs and lots of motherly love and scratches. They all appeared to be exactly the same every hour I checked.

Coco, eating hay and doing well the day before.

That is until my 5 o'clock check... Something was very surprisingly different in a very bad way! I looked over the top of the stall and COCO, THE GOAT THAT WAS 90% BETTER was laying in the corner and would not respond to my voice calling her name. My heart sunk and twisted with fear, I went in and approached her, coaxing her gently with my words. I got to her and placed my hand on her shoulder and she began seizing!!??? I was so shocked and distraught and knew this was it, this was the end. How could this be happening!? She was perfectly fine an hour before! I didn't know what to do!? I called my mentor and described what was happening. The seizure stopped and Coco was just wide eyed and bellowing, I couldn't understand what was happening this made no sense! My mentor advised me to get off the phone and video what was happening and maybe it would be a clue. I was shaking as I watched her seize over and over and there was nothing I could do to help her! I recorded the horrible last two minutes of her very ugly death and then a laid my hands on her and asked for her forgiveness and told her how very sorry I was that I couldn't save her! She was gone while I spoke to her and sobbed over her now lifeless body. I just sat there petting her and telling her how much I loved her and how I wished I could save her! There was really nothing I could do.

I got up and went outside and called the Pathologist (who was working on our case and trying to determine a cause of death from the last goat that died) back again for the millionth time this week. I was going to get answers somehow! She said the cultures were still young in the culturing process but it didn't appear that any one bacteria was standing out amongst the others so it wasn't looking like a bacteria had caused this. She had me call the Large Animal Vet at Auburn and I explained everything to her and we talked for an hour investigating every possible cause and scenario. We decided the next action to take would be to bring them one of our sick goats, either tonight or in the morning, to try to discover what was happening.

So Ryan came home and we sat and talked about what we would do. We had a goat to burry, other goats that needed dinner and to go in for the night, chickens that needed to be fed and watered, dinner to be cooked and eaten and two sick little kids. We decided to bring Sugar in first thing in the morning before the bed of the truck got hot, it was the best plan to not stress out her or us too unnecessarily. So Ryan went out to do all the animal chores and the difficult task of burying another of his favorite goats.

Not even five minutes later I see Ryan run past the window coming back to the house!? The front door flew open and he ran in with the most horrible look on his face! THAT LOOK! The one no one ever wants to see. The look that tells you without a doubt that something horrible has happened! I couldn't! I could not believe anything he was about to tell me! I was paralyzed with NO EMOTION at all! I screamed at him, "DON'T! Don't you dare say a word!" I pushed him into our bedroom, away from our two sick boys watching cartoons in the living room, and closed the door behind us. I stood there in shock and disbelief as his face trembled with emotion, afraid to say it himself. I just had one word, "Who?"... I could see by the look in his eyes he didn't want to answer as he replied, "Sugar." Needless to say, there was a lot of emotions happening at this point. I just shook my head, I couldn't believe it, I accused him of lying, that it wasn't true, that it couldn't possibly true! There was no way she could be gone! She had just started having diarrhea a few hours before!? Nothing kills that fast!? Nothing! It just couldn't be true! It couldn't be possible that my sweet Sugar was gone now too! I can't tell you how many times I heard or said "Well, at least we have Sugar still" when we lost her twin sister a month before! This all can not be happening! Maybe I'm stuck in a really really long nightmare and I just can't wake up? I couldn't even cry...

Sugar, smiling over her mother's shoulder as they cuddle the afternoon before.

After trying to reason through this even being possible or true there was a part of me that raised to the surface. The fighter, the survivor, pulled up out of the dark sticky tar that had taken over and pulled my brain up out of it and into reality. I knew we had to go now! We had to take Sugar for a necropsy and Rocky to be treated before she was dead too! I called the vet back and it was a different vet on call but luckily it was the husband of the vet I already talked to so he had a little insight into our situation. He was great, he asked all the right questions and reassured us they would get this figured out. I told Ryan to go back down to the barn and get them both loaded up into the truck. I got the boys ready and rinsed off the tears and we left.

After a quick run through the drive thru for dinner and an hour and a half drive to get there, we finally arrived at one of the best Vet Schools in the country! I felt confident that these vets would help us get the answers we so desperately needed to save our herd from this invisible and deadly threat!

The next several hours were spent investigating every single possible cause and every single scenario. We looked at every angle with open minds. I only got upset once and called the vet ignorant when he insulted my natural ways before he realized that we were in fact as close to parasite free as goats can be! He then changed his tune about herbal dewormers and began praising us for having our parasites under control better than 90% of the goat and sheep farms in the Southeast including themselves! You see, 90% of the cases they see are situations caused by parasites and this was clearly not what they were finding with our goats! This was definitely a mystery to them as well! He said Sugar was the specimen of perfect body condition and sent her off to have a full necropsy performed. He examined Rocky and drew blood etc. He never even took her off the back of our truck. She was acting like an angel and was showing no signs of being sick other than the intestinal issues. He gave her some hay and water as we talked on into the early hours of the morning.

We ruled out everything! He examined all the reports and initial findings. He said that this was something in their environment, something we are not seeing. Something universal to them all and likely in the paddock. He felt like it was something toxic but couldn't confirm that because there were some things that just didn't add up. There didn't appear to be toxic plants or bad food in the stomach or in the pasture. We were approaching a dead end of just guessing they got into something, somewhere, somehow that was causing the diarrhea but why that was killing them so quick was the weird part. He tested Rocky for anemia and dehydration, all good. I asked him again if he wanted to see the video of when Coco died and he said no need but the med student asked if she could for educational reasons. I handed her my phone and continued talking to the doctor...Until...

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Image Source: Clipart Panda

The students face dropped as she watched the video and she looked up at the doctor and as soon as she caught his eyes he stopped talking and immediately went to her side and watched the video with her! A look of sudden realization swept over him! I knew immediately this video revealed something new! Something we would not have known if I hadn't walked in the barn when I did. Something we would not have known if my mentor had not told me to film it! "What!? WHAT is it!?", I pleaded as he began pointing out things in the video to the student and she nodded with the excitement of learning something new as only a vet school student would. "Classic toxicity neurological behavior presented in the "seizures" you filmed! We are DEFINITELY dealing with a toxin and likely one that has built up in their system over time like a fungus or mold." We had already discussed mold and fungus, but there were no signs of it on any of their feed and we ruled it out. But as we dug deeper into the conversation and fixated on other possible places they could find it we focused in on the incredibly wet summer we have had here. It has made some very interesting mold and fungus growth everywhere! So whether it came from under their water trough or on the blades of grass affected by a slime mold, it got in them all summer long! Something that almost never happens and might not ever happen again as droughts are common in Georgia during summer months. This is the first summer I have seen this much rain since I moved here 15 years ago. And there was nothing I could have done to prevent it from raining or to keep them from eating a little here and there without us ever even knowing it was there...

Finally, things are starting to make sense! Finally, we have a good idea of what has been happening all this time. We are 99.9% sure that it is a built up toxin and 90% sure it is from a rain induced mold or fungus. Unfortunately, there is no way to test this theory. There is no mold toxicity screening they can do on blood or tissue. There is no culture that they can grow rumen contents with. It is just the best, most educated guess... It is better than what we knew at the beginning of this crazy mess so I'll take it for now.

The good news out of this horrible day is that we finally have some answers. We know our parasite control is better than almost anyone else's. Our herd management has the official seal of approval from the State Vet. Rocky is being sent home with us because we have done everything the vets would have and can continue her care at home where she won't be stressed and we won't be growing this vet bill even higher every day. IT IS NOT CONTAGIOUS! So we don't have to worry about the new kids we are waiting to be born getting sick! It does not affect our milk in any way so we are definitely happy about that! We now know to treat with activated charcoal immediately as it binds with toxins. We are also doing Penicillin in case of secondary infections. So we know how to treat while keeping them hydrated. And best of all, it hasn't rained in a little while now and no new goats are sick! And, five days later and Rocky made a full recovery and rejoined the herd! I can finally breathe a little. We are nervous and watchful but we can't control mother nature!

I have now officially, truly let it all out! In writing this, I sobbed and cried for all we have been through but I finally let it all out, what has been bursting inside of me. I can finally share this information with all of you! I know people will have more questions that I didn't answer here but please be gentle with what you ask. I am very sensitive still and a bit defensive even, understandably! So now my written story is told and I can just read this for my youtube vlog so everyone will know what happened last Friday, that will be very hard to film but I owe it to all the thousands of people that love my goats and want to know.

I hope this is my last depressing piece for a long, long, time! Hopefully, I'll be bragging about new kids next!!!

Thanks for reading through this difficult post!

❤ Rose