Self acknowledged space exploration geek, I went to the Galápagos Islands and had to find a place for my escape artist Boer goat — Houdini. By the grace of God I had spoken with an amazing goat farmer North of me. My farmer friend even agreed to breed Houdini with one of his bucks. Artemis I was born five months later. Of course I wasn’t savvy enough at the time to name Houdini’s second generation after the daughter of Zeus, goddess of Nature and animals, though we did welcome Aries that year too from a different dam. In both cases though, it was all about space then.
Reflecting on Artemis I thought she really was a spirit animal for me because she was my first and thankfully last case of polioencephalomalacia (PEM) she did teach me enumerable lessons about goat disease and nutrition. I know the evolutionary history of this disease in goats and sheep is revolutionary because I am Epidemiologist and I have rarely seen a disease that rivals this disease in humans. Perhaps epidemic levels of cholera or rift valley fever come close, but there is also progeria element as well.
However let me also clarify this is not a communicable disease. The reason for polio and then encephalitis is all about etiology. Goat appears normal. Then the thiamine levels plummet, almost always due to nutrient deficiency. A day later the nervous system starts to spark, inflammation follows around nerve centers. The goat loses all vision and stumbles around silently searching for food and kin. At this point the herd is little help. They cut the straggler loose with thoughts and prayers. I was little better. Goats are vocal but they are also resilient to the hoof and they compensate heroically. I didn’t even notice Artemis was blind until I found her head down stuck in a hay bin. Foolishly my mind raced to pneumonia and tetanus, those were the only goat diseases I understood at this point.
By day three Artemis had lost the ability to stand. The vet taught me about PEM and there was a possible therapeutic pathway back to normal. Here’s the tragedy though, that intervention requires preparation and vet support. The problem with vets is they are too expensive for small farmers like myself. Thus PEM becomes an enzyme for prevention. It’s almost like a kill switch for causal goat husbandry. When a young perfectly healthy goat can be blind, paralyzed, unconscious, and dead four days later nutrition becomes essential.
I love vets. Seeing how much I have always emoted for animals I probably should have been one. The power of the Artemis is strong with me. However the fact that I didn’t become a vet is useful too because with so few goats and sheep now for example in the U.S. and the numbers we need, we’ll let me say it plainly veterinarians might as well be pallbearers too because they are not equipped to cover the demand. They are already stretched too thin.
I think about the Shakers. Vets should be like the Shakers. They’re not the villains though. They are natural shepherds and we need more of them and they need to be produced faster and paid less. In addition to transforming vets as a pleb goat farmer.
I believe every family with land, the land owners, should have goats. I believe community landscapers and gardeners and subsistence farmers and homesteaders should have goats.
The truth is humans are not great at managing landscapes. Goats manage vegetation to survive. Moreover goats are certainly capable of ruining ecosystems like humans, but there is no more destructive force on Earth than a human without farming sense and biophilia with a tractor or these overpowered lawnmowers.
Folks need to understand that owning property does not mean you have the right to wreck sustainable ecologies. Trust me I know how easy it is to do. A goat without a shepherd can be as destructive as a tractor. However even in that comparison I think the goat is still a better investment because they have been unnaturally selected to return carbon and nitrogen to the soil whenever they subtract some in food stuffs.
A tractor doesn’t return shit. The tractor just eats and grinds and it’s a marvelous bloody waste. No thank you, tractors are like vets, they’re convenient when you can afford them but depending on them is perilous. Add to these all the other gas guzzler toys we use constantly. All of these brilliant landsmen, keeping our decks and lawns immaculate while the living Earth dies around us.
In the year of the horse. Let’s see more goat power. More affordable vets. Less tractors. More biology!
