Farm Meditation: We Called Her Crazy Legs
From the beginning, when we got the goats—ten of them, does, Kikos—there were two that stood out. Almost all of the group looked identical, but these two were unusually friendly. They came up to be scratched, loved to be near us when we were out and didn’t show an ounce of fear of humans. The rest of the does were wary every time we approached, looking at us intensely and running off as soon as we came near. But #2106 and #2108 became favorites, and we built a relationship with them (as much as one can have with a goat you see only once a day) talking with them and scratching them between the horns as goats like.
Crazy Legs got her more proper name after she got a meningeal worm. It’s a disease carried by deer who cough or sneeze out the parasites. The microbes are then picked up by slugs, who can be accidentally ingested by goats eating leaves. Mother Nature can sure concoct some pretty disgusting things.
Like many things on a farm, there was little we could do about it. The goat was the only one who got it, but it made her back legs weak and wobbly even after treatment. Yet she learned to cope and continued to function much as a goat does, foraging tree leaves, eating thorny (and invasive) multiflora rose and lounging around with the others for most of the day in the sunshine.
We decided to keep Crazy Legs in with the rest and have her bred by our buck Bucky (yes, it is a very original name) since her disabilities didn’t seem to impede much on her ability to live a normal life. She was fine throughout the pregnancy although she was a bit smaller and ended up giving birth to a single kid, unlike most in the group who had triplets this year. (The vet told us there were lots of triplets this year - weird.)
The kid was healthy, big and vibrant, but he started to come up to us as we fed some other bottle kids each day and was hungry. We could see that Crazy Legs was not letting him nurse and her teets were barely swollen, lacking milk. She was also getting knocked over when she tried to eat with the other goats and was increasingly having a difficult time with her legs. She became skinny, too skinny, her back hip bones jutting out and her body thin.
We brought a poop sample to the vet and lo and behold, she had a very high parasite load. Goats have issues with parasites, and she had an amount that was clearly impacting her body. We gave her medication, and more medication, and even more medication, but she did not improve.
There are many, many, many situations on farms when you want desperately want to help, but can’t. The animals have their own lives to live, and even if we want to believe we can fix most everything, we can’t. Sometimes animals are ill, or sometimes there are accidents. Sometimes those accidents can even be of our own making. Shit happens on a farm (literally and figuratively), over and over and over again.
As a city kid, born and raised in the US, this has been a hard pill to swallow. In the city, there is a false sense of control, an organization of the natural world in which humans reign supreme. You can mow or spray to rid yourself of those ticks or cockroaches, the mice or the parasites. A pet who gets hurt is whisked off to the vet for help. And very often there are expensive tests, medications, treatments and even surgeries for your animals, all of which are possibly actually just treatments for the pet owner who can’t swallow the truth that there is little to be done.
But on a farm, there are too many animals, too few vets (there is a big animal vet shortage in the country, by the way), and too many variables to be able to save everyone. There are natural cycles of life and death built into farm life—we do raise animals and plants to eat after all—but often we don’t get a say in who lives or dies.
It is a good thing to remember—to take a few minutes to meditate upon today—that the cycle of life is all around us. It is an amazing, awe-inspiring system when we stop to appreciate it, to realize that everything is impermanent. We are on this carousel ride for only a short time, and we dang better appreciate it this time around before it slows down and finally stops.
We brought Crazy Legs into the barn lot where she could have full access to food and water without any competition and a place out of the elements to sleep. Most importantly, she would not have her kid trying to nurse all the time and she could regain her strength. At first she seemed a bit better, excited by the honeysuckle or oak leaves we would bring her. She drank a lot of water, and seemed comfortable and content.
But it became apparent that Crazy Legs was not really getting any better. What we were really doing, it stuck me, was perhaps a more important service; not by continuing to treat her, but by letting her have her own process of dying. I called it goat hospice, and we visited her many times a day to talk with her or give her a scratch between the horns.
John called from the farm the day he found her body in the barn. His voice cracked when he told me—even farmers who have experienced such a thing many times struggle when they lose an animal.
The phone line was quiet a minute, the both of us choked up and at a loss for words.
“She lived a wonderful life,” I told John. And we knew it was true.
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Really enjoyed this week’s column. It is the story of life - Human or animal. Crazy legs had a great life and I think she appreciated the warmth and care both of you gave her.
Thanks to this column, I’m now reliving some of the experiences growing up on our family farm in NE Iowa. As a tomboy until my years in high school, I was at my dad’s side for daily chores with our cattle. I learned that you can’t ride your pet calf; I got thrown and still have a visible scar on the inside of my left upper arm from the barbed wire I grabbed as I was being tossed. I loved our cattle though I learned one of our roosters was unfriendly during a battle when I was 3 years old. I lost the fight, though my dad rescued me and wrung the rooster’s neck. Life on the farm! Your story about Crazy Legs and your relationship with her brought a smile… and tears. RIP Crazy Legs!