Loss and an Orphan

Hobby farming, the idyllic picture of a beautiful, quaint farm in the rolling hills, with happy and healthy animals of all sorts of shapes and sizes running around freely enjoying life in the sunshine. The beautifully dressed and styled hobby farmist gaily carrying a bucket of water through the meadow to an expectant mother, all while the sun shines down its warming rays. It sounds absolutely perfect. Idyllic. Somebody's dream..... and you know some days it is, and those days I lap up like a cat with cream. However, there are those days for which this blog post is titled, 'Days of loss and an Orphan'.

We found ourselves in one of those days on Tuesday. I had been up since 2:30am when I had been checking on an expectant doe and was unable to get back to sleep. I had spent the day dress shopping with our youngest (very fashion conscious) daughter, and by the time I had arrived home from the city I was ready to plop down on the couch with a cuppa and just relax. However, life on a farm never quite goes to plan and no sooner had we arrived home, and I had dinner on than the girls called (thank you for modern technology) from the back field to say that Faun (one of our expectant does) was in labor. Just as dinner was chugging along and I was getting ready to head up to the back our eldest daughter called again to let me know that she didn't like the look of things. I high tailed it up to the back field. The first goat kid was not presenting properly, and assistance was needed. Our eldest daughter was able to help Faun birth a beautiful, healthy, and blue-eyed buckling (aptly named Theo (a gift from God)). However, it was evident that things were not right, and a vet was called. Unfortunately, there were two more goat kids presenting in the birth canal at the same time and as hard as we tried (even our youngest daughter with the smallest hands) and the vet tried we were unable to deliver the goat kids. Loss on the farm is a hard thing to wrap your mind around. You, or at least I, begin to question why you do what you do. You think through everything, could you have done anything differently? Loss of an animal's life is hard, let alone also losing its young. You have to make difficult decisions, you have to call the vet as you realize that however much you think you know about a situation, you really don't. You feel inadequate, tired, emotionally drained, and you feel for your children who have been there from the beginning and are learning alongside you.

It was a tough long evening, but as evening became night our focus had to shift to the little blessing to come out of all of this. To an orphaned little buckling who needed nurturing. Our farm is a 'dam' raised farm, where we allow the mothers to raise their young, nurture them, nurse them and teach them. Now, all of a sudden, we were in that place for little Theo. A makeshift enclosure was made using a large box with a blanket inside (and of course a small cuddly horse as a companion). The bottle-feeding charts were found, the bottles sterilized, and the feeding regime began. Thankfully, I was able to milk Mamma and had some colostrum to feed to little Theo. I always think the first 24 hours are the most important and little Theo did amazing. It has been almost 48 hours since he was born and he seems to be thriving. In fact, the following day I had commitments that I was unable to move and so we packed up a small dog crate and along came Theo and his horse and bottles.

Little Theo has very quickly found a place in our hearts, and I can only hope that the road forward for this little one will be an easy one. We are doing everything we can to make sure he gets the start he needs. As always, I invite you along on his journey but please understand that you never quite know with farming what the journey will entail, or what the ending will be.

We still have two does to deliver this kidding season and I can only hope that they go smoothly!

I am thankful too for friends who just pop in, who understand that not only are there difficulties in farming, but difficulties that we navigate through life in general and when those two meet, and life continues to pull us in several different directions, sometimes we just need reminding that 'God's got us!'.

Again, we thank you for coming on this journey with us as we show you snippets of life here at Farm On The Hill.