The day after the fire I came out to find my little Pygora goat, Count Chocula had passed away in the night.  I cried.  Pretty hard too because I thought I was over the worst bits of my luck.  Apparently not.  I had no idea what had caused this because he had been running around right up till I put them away for the night with out a sign of anything being wrong.  I was devastated but this is livestock first.  I know that sounds terrible, I know you are all frowning at me, but honestly, he wasn’t friendly like Charlie or Oops or Dude.  He didn’t want me anywhere near him and though he was adorable and I loved him he wasn’t a pet.

Then I noticed Dude was acting a little lethargic and Charlie was acting a little weird.  Panic struck that I might have something bigger on my hands that might wipe out my beloved goats.  I called the vet and got Dr Scott out.  Now I love Dr Scott, I totally have a farm crush on him because he’s no nonsense and knows what he’s talking about.  He’s not a dog and cat vet, he’s a big animal vet which means he understands a little better where I’m coming from.  After a quick check of the goats he determined that Charlie was fine but Dude’s rumen was slow.  That means his 4 stomachs weren’t churning his food like they should be.  It’s like a car idling too slow and threatening to stall.  Except in goats this will kill.

We went over everything they’ve gotten into and what they’ve been eating.  My goats are strictly pasture fed with a little bit of grain to enforce training to come when I call.  (Yes, my goats do come when I call, usually better than my dogs do).  They hadn’t gotten an overload of grain or chicken feed or anything.  It made no sense but Dr Scott being as awesome as he is kept asking.  He knew something had happened.

Then I shrugged and was like “My neighbor threw a bunch of apples over the fence yesterday, like a huge amount.” and Dr Scott looked at me, nodded and said “That was it, that’s what happened.”  And that’s what killed my little goat.  My goats have been eating apples all summer with out a problem but the last 2 months? Nothing.  I hadn’t noticed any apples falling off the tree on our side of the property in a while which means that our goats weren’t eating them.  Then the neighbor in his good intentions threw over about 30 apples and my goats being gluttons ate them all up.

Here’s the problem though.  Goats like cows or sheep have rumen which means they have multiple stomachs that digest food that normally wouldn’t be nutritious.  They eat grass and the like and create a base environment in their stomach.  Adding the sudden intake of so many apples created an acid environment and basically poisoned the goats.   This is called Rumenial Acidosis. Now that I had a reason and a diagnosis I felt better (well a little).  Dude was given a dose of rumen starter and is now doing so much better that I think he feels normal and everyone else is fine too.  I just didn’t know.  The goats had been eating apples all summer without an issue but here’s what I didn’t realize.  They had been off apples for about 2 months, then had a gluttony of them.  This is where it went bad.  Apples themselves are fine in moderation but you can’t add anything that produces that much sugar right away.

Now I have to write a kindly letter to my neighbor about this.  I’m dreading it because I don’t see it as his fault but I don’t know if he will think that.  I think he’s fantastic and wonderful but this accident happened and I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  I swear, some days you just can’t get a break.

Rest in pease little Chocula, I’m so sorry this happened.