RIP Jazzie

Right now all I can say is that we are definitely having our own issues on the farm. Last night was great I won the benefit roping and donated half my winnings back to Pattie’s Family! I was honored to have won and been able to do that. As they say what goes around comes around. And so it goes for Pattie. When I got home I dealt with Mom who was pretty much a mess.

I guess I need to back up and I might even get a bit of griping at for telling all and how not everything needs to go on the blog but without the back info you can’t even imagine how hard a time Mom is having right now. You see for the last 8 years Mom has not just “helped out” at the fair but she was superintendent of the poultry. This year someone told the fair board that Mom resigned. She did not but they took someone else’s word for it. She had planned on resigning AFTER this year so that she can be free for activities for my senior year of High school. Anyway, they replaced her without telling her.

Mom had sponsors she had to go to and let know that they couldn’t sponsor this year. Mom was embarrassed but what could she do? She just kept saying it was fine or that it didn’t matter because she was resigning anyway. I know she was hurt and that it did hurt her feelings. Mom wanted to say goodbye on her own terms but that didn’t happen. And like a champ Mom was at the fair and helped out with whatever they needed and she did it with a smile. I know, however, it wasn’t easy for her.

Now fast forward to yesterday (just a few days later from the whole fair drama). I left Dimples and Jazzie in her care, as she calls it and things got worse. Dimples didn’t make it and then today, while I was again away at work with my Uncle, Jazzie lost her fight. Mom is blaming herself in full force. She has cried and cried and told me how sorry she was. In the end Mom decided that she is going to replace them for me. (I told her that she didn’t have to and that things would be okay) but Mom always feels better if she is doing something to fix things.

Mom got on the internet and started looking to see what she could find. She figured spring babies are coming of age and might be for sale. She found a farm here in Oklahoma and called them. Well, Let me just say that we have worked with the vet and we have done everything that he would have done. If we have done something wrong it is just because we didn’t know it was wrong. So, this lady, a nice well meaning lady, starts out asking how many angoras we have and Mom tells her 8. She then explains that we lost two and they seem to be having some issues so we were looking to replace the ones we lost. The lady then asks where we got them and so Mom tells the lady a short version of how I won the first ones and then how we got the two colored ones. The lady then announces to Mom that we have a “Management Problem” and made Mom feel horrible because now she thinks outsiders are blaming her as well. This well meaning lady said that “it doesn’t mean I won’t sell to you but you need to make some changes on your farm.”

She went on to tell Mom how We need to rotate our pastures and we need Electric fence to do so. Our Vet, who has been here, says we don’t have enough animals on the set area for pasture rotation to be needed. The lady also said that all our goats need to be dry lotted. Meaning they need to be pulled off the pasture and fed hay and grain, until we get them all healthy. (Okay, Dimples and Jazzie were the only ones that were sick and they passed … And Cinnamon has her own set of issues that has nothing to do with any of the issues going on) She went on to tell us that we need to build new feeders and she had an opinion about How we should have never taken Cinnamon in the first place since we didn’t know what we were doing. ?????? Really???? Cinnamon got better care with us then she got with the lady who had been in the business for many, many years … How is that a bad thing?

Needless to say Mom now feels more horrible (if that is even possible) then before she tried to replace the goats we lost. I can see tears in her eyes off and on today. She isn’t taking calls or even talking to anyone. I had Emily over to practice roping tonight and Mom didn’t even come out of the house. If you know my Mom at all, you will know that she is feeling very bad right now and all I know to do is give her a hug every time I go past her.

I really don’t feel like we have a management problem. We work with a vet that does all he can for our animals. We have done everything he has told us. We have changed medications and nothing has worked. How is it a management problem if only two are sick and not responding to our treatment program? Doesn’t the healthy ones attest to the fact that we do a decent job of Managing the herd??? I just can’t believe that to an outsider it would look like we are not doing everything we can for all our animals?? Out of Eleven angora goats, over the course of 3 years, we have only lost 3. How does that add up to a management problem???