It’s 3 a.m.

I glanced down at the baby goat I’m holding like a human infant. The kid is wrapped up in warm blankets, tiny white face barely peaking out of the lump of towel. He’s twitching. Not a good sign. He could be dreaming. 

Or having a seizure.

I found him around 3 p.m. that afternoon, splayed out in the maternity stall, legs far too long his tiny, Pomeranian sized body flailing in all directions. I tried to pick him up and put him back on his feet. He slumped down. He couldn’t walk. 

Birthing goats in the winter is a hard business and one I never want to have to do again. Healthy newborns run a temperature between 101 and 104 degrees. Below 100, and the goat is actively dying, internal organs shutting down, lungs filling up.

We keep a pretty tightly insulated and warm stall for kidding goats in our barn; but, during the frigid day, the front door had been left open. The draft entered, seeped under the door. At some point, the kid’s temperature dropped dangerously low. 

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When I held him and he went limp, I knew. I rushed him into our home. With a harsh welcome to the world, I read his temp rectally – he was too cold to read. The worst possible scenario.

And so we set out to save his life. 

My first lesson through all of this: Warm baths can save lives, and are the first steps kid savers should take. Fill the sink up with warm water, hold the kids head so he doesn’t drown, and let his temperature rise. I filled up the other bay in our sink while the kid floated; gently lifting him, I moved him to the other bay full of water, drained the dirty, cool water, and refilled it. We did this a few times, transferring him back and forth, sink hopping. 

He started to kick. Either a sign of life, or a sign of dying.  It’s hard to get hopeful. Like the dreaming, this could be the kid waking up, starting to thaw, or it could be a seizure. There was no way to know. Things could get better until they got worse. A lot worse. His temp, now readable, was up to about 97. Very much in the danger-zone.

Dry him off on a towel, burrito him, blow dry his face. I commandeered the cat bed, stuck it in front of the space heater, and left the kid, who drifted from semi-lucid to comatose in front of it. 

It was now 4 p.m., dark. I ran up to the barn, took the temps of the other kids; all normal. I sealed the barn as fast as I could; in my hurry, I jammed my finger in the door to a stall and sent a sharp sliver of a splinter up underneath my fingernail; bleating (and bleeding), swearing profusely, I ran back down to the house with a throbbing, purple middle finger. 

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The goat was as I left him. I filled the sink up, this time for myself, and pulled splinter of wood after splinter of wood out. It was now 6.p.m.  His temp had climbed to 98. 

Another bath. A little more life, hardly out of the woods. By 10 p.m. he was wrapped in three towels and a blanket, and I sat, clutching him to my chest, half-waiting for him to pass away.

But he made it through the night. By morning, he was back up to temperature, and I had fed him colostrum from a bottle throughout the night; he had food in his belly, and, by 3 p.m. that afternoon, he was up and walking around my living-room, introducing himself to my weary cat.

He was a success story. His name is Lazarus.

But farming is brutal. According to the University of Arkansas, 14 percent of kids in the U.S. die before weaning. Many of my farmer friends expect to lose 2 or three kids during a good birthing season. 

It’s sad to say, but Lazarus was lucky. The first kid to be born this winter was born outside; he was born prematurely, and his mother had slipped through a small opening the barn that morning and given birth in the freezing rain. 

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I scooped the two kids up and warmed them in a stall under a heating lamp. We went through most of the same motions with this kid. We did the bath. He didn’t get better. My wife and I cried, and finally, in an act of desperation, I posted a plea to a livestock Facebook group. 

A very generous farmer a few miles from us, much more experienced than us, offered to take the kid in for the night to try and get him back up to temperature. He didn’t make it. But for us, exhausted, covered in hay and goat feces and smelling like barn, the kind, simple gesture of resource sharing made our hellish night so much better.

This is a “thank you” to the unsung heroes of the Maine farming community, who are willing to spend time, resources, and a sleepless night to try and bring a kid back from the brink. 

If you’re sentimental like me, and you look for lessons in experiences, this seems clear. If you can help, help. Use your knowledge to help others, and help younger farmers learn the tricks of the barn

The world, people and goats alike, are better for it. 


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