Farm Meditation: Taking a Sick Day
A Lesson For Humans
The sickness, as it were, is in the form of two bad legs, one on the new puppy, Ruti, and the other on goat #2105.
The dog is an easy, although laughable, “fix.” It comes in the form of a cone on the head, meant to stop dogs from licking their wounds and turning a scraped knee into a cesspool of bacteria. Ruti mournfully walked around the house with the cone on his head, wondering what he did to deserve such a fate, hitting every table and chair before him. Then he passed out cold in the dog bed, belly up, as they say.
He will be fine.
The hurt goat on the other hand is more of an issue. Her bad leg is of unknown origin, resulting in a limp in which she puts no weight on her foot. A quick inspection did not yield any information; there are no thorns in her foot or inflammation to indicate a break. We gave her some antibiotics because it started to look a bit puffy—so far to no avail.
Limping goats on the farm are a somewhat frequent event—if you climbed and jumped off rocks and logs, and head-butted your friends every day, you too would likely have a hurt shoulder once in a while. But when a goat limps for days, well then you need to do something about it—yet “doing something about it” is often more difficult than it sounds.
Here’s the thing about raising “pasture-raised animals” (and one of the reasons more people don’t do it)—the animals are in the pasture. That means that anytime one is hurt you have to not only catch it (which in and of itself can be a very sticky situation); you have to then lead it, carry it, or drive it into where you can take care of it, usually (following Murphy’s law) as far away from the current field as is possible.
Cows (for obvious reasons) are not animals one can easily carry to a barn lot, at least not without additional, specialized equipment no smaller-scale farm can afford. This means you have to get them to walk all the way themselves with a bad foot or hip, an event that can take hours.
A goat, on the other hand, is an animal you can catch and carry in a large dog crate or, in a pinch, on your lap in the ATV. You can more easily bring them to where you can care for them—to a makeshift goat shelter for example or perhaps to a tree where you can tie them up to keep your eye on them while they eat grasses and shrubs.
We first tried the leash, which did not go well. Making a “wild,” albeit domesticated, animal walk or graze while on a leash can be an exercise in futility. It can take several days before the animal gets the hang of what is going on, and in the meantime our limping goat wound herself up in a ball, becoming more and more stressed and agitated as the lead grew shorter.
So I suggested we put her in the chicken house at night and let her “graze” outdoors on plants we bring to her. This plan seems to be working. The goat hobbles out to eat and then makes herself at home in the chicken house when not eating. Her foot doesn’t seem to be getting better, but at least she is getting plenty of food, unlike when she was back with the herd and getting bullied.
But the most interesting part of this scenario to me has not been the limp or the leash or even the tomatoes the goat seems to like to eat (surprise!). It is the duck.
Of our two ducks, one has gone broody, sitting on some eggs now for many weeks (we have no idea if she will hatch ducklings or not). The other one has been on her own, wandering around a bit aimlessly. Now the duck follows the goat and the two sleep together in the back room of the chicken house, away from the loud, pesky chickens roosting all night as a group up on their perches. The duck and the goat lay on the wooden floor of the other room, a bit apart but still together.
I imagine the two of them together in that room for hours in the dark, silently sitting together in solidarity, making the best of a lonely night by spending it with a new and unusual friend. I think about how they might try to talk but speak wildly different languages, or about how their shared experiences and knowledge might make words unnecessary, creating a sacred space between them.
I appreciate the duck, reaching out in that way. Crossing over to a different species to help a fellow animal feel better, while filling her own need for a new friendship. Perhaps it is just me projecting, anthropomorphizing and turning simple barnyard animals into empathetic creatures. But it warms my heart to think that this is possible, that different species—or even warring humans—might be able to reach out to each other in their loneliness and pain.
These animals have bad legs, physical manifestations of an “illness” that we can see and care for. But humanity also is “sick”—ruled by fear and rage, extracting revenge even from those who are not responsible for our misery. It strikes me that we can learn a lot from this goat and duck. We too could form new friendships with those who do not think, speak or look like us. But in the end, we are so much the same.
Farm Meditations are a series written from Whippoorwill Creek Farm, in south-central Iowa. We offer grass-finished beef, pastured goats and vegetables, in addition to farm stays in our amazing new Barn-House. Please contact us at WhippoorwillCreekFarmIowa@gmail.com
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I totally enjoyed this meditation today! Thank you so much!
What a lovely essay! Thank you, Beth!!!!