Oliver the goat

The day after Thanksgiving we drove over towards the Orlando area to do some black Friday shopping. A woman posted on one of the local chicken/farm facebook groups I follow that she had a bottle fed 2 week old goat available for sale. Her house was really close to Orlando and so we decided to go for it! We wanted to get a bottle fed goat since they bond more closely to you and this guy was cute as a button! We decided to name him Oliver.

Since he needed a bottle every 6 hours and he was all alone, we decided to keep him in the house until he is big enough to be weaned and be outside all the time. He was the sweetest little thing, always ready to snuggle.

He was still growing in his baby teeth, so he was chewing on everything!

Anthony feeding him a bottle:

He actually fell asleep in James' bed with him and I had to go get him to give him a bottle in the middle of the night. It felt like having a new child!

We couldn't find him one afternoon and eventually tracked him down under the Christmas tree.

During the day he would hang out with Seabiscuit outside:

I ran out of goat's milk we got from his mother, so we took him to the farmer's market to buy some more. He wasn't a fan of walking on the leash, but he loved all the attention he got. So many people would stop and stare and take a second look before they realized he was a goat and not a dog!

Unfortunately after having him for about a week, we noticed that he started acting strange. He would walk around the house, peeing small amounts and making grunting noises like it was hurting him. We researched like crazy what it could be, and it isn't too uncommon for older male goat to have urinary stones so we thought that might be what he had. We found an after hours vet clinic that would see him, so we spent 3 hours late one night with him there. They agreed with us that he probably had a blockage in his urinary tract. They gave him some sedation and passed a catheter to empty his bladder. Then they sent us home with antibiotic injections and anti-inflammatory medication to give him and we hoped that would be it.

A few days later, he started doing the grunting and dribbling urine again, so we called around to find another place that would take him that was familiar with goats and could see him right away. We found a place about an hour away, so I picked James up from school early and drove straight there. They were able to test his urine and they analyzed it and found calcium stones. The vet was really stumped because she said there was no reason at all that he should have them, he has only been drinking milk so it couldn't really be his diet! The only think she could think of was that it was something genetic. They gave him some gas and tried to pass a catheter to empty his bladder again but his poor urinary tract was so inflamed that they couldn't get a catheter in. The only other thing to do was to perform a $1000 operation that would reroute his urethra permanently. We decided that we just couldn't spend that much money, especially since it wouldn't be likely that his little body could take that much surgery and anesthesia. The vet was really nice and gave me a hug and told me not to feel guilty but that it probably would be the best decision to put him to sleep.

So I talked to the boys and explained what was happening and we got to go give him kisses and pet him and say goodbye. He was still asleep from them trying to pass the catheter, so he wasn't in pain.

They let us take him home and we picked a spot to bury him over by the chickens. The boys and I put flowers on it and said a little prayer to thank Heavenly Father for the time we got to spend with him. He was a special little guy and it is surprising how much we came to love him in a short amount of time!

So we are going to take a little time before we try goats again, and for now we are going to stick with girls (they don't usually have the urinary problems). It was a sad ending to a fun adventure, but we will just learn from it and keep going!