Photo by Michael Fillion

A Warm Sunny Day Full of Promise

Last December I went totally nuts and bought a herd of 9 pregnant goats in hopes of starting a dairy farm. The babies were due in March so we had plenty of time to prepare for them. No critters had been raised on our family farm in many years which meant all the sheds and fences were either in disrepair or non-existent. We were starting with a blank slate; which we initially saw as a good, but soon found out had some serious downsides as well. 

On the cold December weekend before the goats were to arrive, our work began; we had to fence a small temporary plot of land and cobble together a makeshift shelter. We read everything we could about goat fences and felt compelled to put in a 6-foot tall “no climb woven horse fence” with cemented-in corner post and “T” posts every 8 feet. These babies weren’t going anywhere. And they didn’t.

Unfortunately we spent so much time on the walls of “Fort Goat” that we didn’t get much of a shelter up. In fact, if you call 3 cattle panels and blue tarp a shelter you’re probably being too generous. But it had to do. We were out of time, daylight and money and the herd was coming the next Saturday.

Photo by YNSKjen

We worked our city jobs during the following week and made it to the farm bright and early on Saturday for the goat delivery. It was a warm, sunny day full of promise.

The goats arrived and settled into their new home without a hitch. They nibbled the grass and sniffed the blue tarp, finally laying down for a nice winter afternoon nap. We put alfalfa hay out for them, and realized we had no feeder to hold it. We put grain out too, only to realize we had no bucket. As we began to look around for a water tub, we realized we had absolutely NOTHING suitable for holding water for nine thirsty goats. Finally I located two big plastic storage tubs, recently emptied of their contents onto the attic floor, and started to fill them with fresh clean water. Which is about the time I realized that the outside faucet didn’t work. So I checked the other outside faucet. Dry Too! I asked my Dad about it and he casually mentioned that I would have to drag a hose through the laundry room window and hook it to the faucet on the laundry sink. Sigh.

Half an hour later after enough hose lengths were found, the bins began to fill. I felt such hope. If we could overcome all these feed and water and shelter challenges, the rest would come easy right?

Fast forward to the next weekend…

Icy rain was forecasted with a possibility of snow. It had rained all week and the goats managed to keep dry enough in the “Blue Tarp Hotel” thankfully. But the pasture began to get mucky and the hay got dirty too easily so we decided to build a manger. Not just any manger, but an uber complicated, take-you-all-day-in-the-icy-rain-kinda manger.

I had read that goats eat 2 pounds of hay a day, so I stocked the barn with six 75-pound bales of alfalfa and 3 bales of straw. I figured that would be at least enough until I could get back the following weekend and arrange to have a few tons delivered. That was Sunday evening, 8 days in to goat ownership. We left the farm to head to our city house in the dark as the icy rain began to fall hard.

That night, snow fell and it didn’t stop until there was 2 1/2 feet on the ground. The family farm was completely snowed in. We were also snowed in 26 miles away in the city with no way to get to the farm to help or bring supplies.The laundry room hose froze, the buckets froze, the blue tarp hotel bowed under the weight of the snow and my dad trudged hourly through the mud and snow to sweep it off to keep it from falling in on our poor goats.

Meanwhile the girls huddled in the back corner of their rapidly flooding shelter and the 3 bales of straw we bought did nothing to staunch the flow of water. It was straw soup and they were cold and wet.

Because of the swift and unexpected turn in the weather, the animals also ate a lot more hay than expected. In less than 4 days they were out of hay and the farm was still snowed in. We called around to the neighbors to see if anyone had any hay to spare (I even asked for a flake or two if that’s all they could spare). Most people either lost their hay in barn cave-ins or had their barns completely snowed in and could not get in to them easily.

My dad scraped up as much hay as he could from the garage floor and fed them a little to keep them going. Meanwhile I’m stuck in Portland completely frantic and feeling utterly helpless. I was feeling like a horrible person for not being able to help my animals…and it was my fault for not buying more hay when I had the chance…I couldn’t sleep for worrying. Not to mention the guilt.

Finally, my dad found a neighbor who gave him a few flakes from a giant bale of alfalfa and it held the goats until he could drive the 11 miles to town on snow rutted roads and balding tires to buy hay.

It was touch and go! We had toyed with fate but death on a family farm was avoided for the time being.

To be continued…