Don’t answer that question with, "With my fingers." I’m thinking more about health here, not listening to smart alec comebacks. Health is a serious thing. Not only is your health important, but your goats’ health also.

You have to be careful about being healthy, though. It can be dangerous. If you are the sensitive type like myself, everything you read about health you take very seriously. Raise up your hands on how many of you have had to quit buying health magazines. Especially those women health magazines (guys, put down your hands, remember what I said about being a smart alec?) because you had everything they wrote about?

In the beginning of time, when I was in college learning to be a special education teacher, I had to watch this empathy I had because of the field I was in. After reading about all the problems of a special child, I was totally amazed how a mongoloid, autistic, dyslexic, barely trainable person like myself ever made it through college and receive two degrees.

When I started reading about goat health, the same thing happened. No, I didn’t think I had a goat’s disease (I did wonder about one or two of them though), but I thought all my goats showed all these symptoms sometime in the past, present, and I’m betting, in the future. I had to check this out closer, make sure I had all the medications for everything.

The Nairobi sheep disease, Peste Des Petits, and the Trypanosomiasis diseases gave me quite a pause. I couldn’t even pronounce them, except the one with "sheep" in it. How on earth could I call and tell the vet what my goats had, if I couldn’t pronounce it? When I ran across Papillomatosis, I relaxed. Everyone knows that one. Warts! Your goats have been out kissing frogs again. Nothing to help that one except to let it wear off in a year and hope they don’t kiss anymore frogs. No worry on that one.

Then one evening, the worse thing in the world happened. Our older fullblood Boer buck wasn’t acting "right". No, he wasn’t going around quacking like a duck or meowing like a cat. He just wasn’t acting right. He was acting tame.

We hadn’t fooled with this buck much and he pretty well thought all people were down right yucky. Trying to catch him to worm him or give him shots was a real rodeo. One day I flippantly said to Lee we needed to trim the older buck’s feet. Lee said, fine, how we going to catch him?

No problem I said. I went and got feed while Lee watched, wondering what I was up to. I went into the buck’s building, poured the feed in and left, only ducking behind the building. The buck went into the building, I snuck around the building, and with a mighty leap dove into the building and grabbed his horns to hold him. Now remember, this is an almost grown fullblood Boer buck. He’s already better then 250 lbs.

The next thing I knew, we leaped out of the building. This greatly puzzled me since I had no intentions of leaping anywhere. But, for the moment I was under buck power. Ha! I can stop you, boy, I thought. I’m hanging on for dear life, up against the buck’s shoulder, holding onto his horns with a death grip. Instead of running along with him, I stuck my heels into the ground. Talk about plowing the north forty. It never even slowed him down.

On my second trip around the buck’s pen, Lee leaned over the gate and yelled, "Do you need help?" I seem to be surrounded by smart alecs.

But, the question made me mad enough to grab hold of the buck’s beard with one hand while the other is hanging onto one horn. I set my feet even more, threw my hip into the buck’s side and was able to start circling him by turning his head by the use of his beard.

While we are dizzily circling, the buck gives up and stops and Lee comes in and puts a collar on him so we can tie him and trim his feet. Another story there, but I won’t bore you.

That gives you an idea how wild he is. Now, here is this buck standing there, sleepy eyed, and not moving when I come near him. Not good. He has to be sick. I sit down on the water tub and study the situation. He really doesn’t look good. His eyes look off, not perky and wild. Plus, he’s not leaving the country because I walked into his pen.

I sit and think over my options and decide there’s no help to it, he’s got to have his temperature taken. I’d have to go tell Lee. I can just see our obituaries now, " After big buck has a thermometer stuck up his rear, he stomps his owners into the ground. What pieces we could find are now buried here where they’re wild ideas may now rest in peace. May we all learn from this." Signed Ravenswood’s Daily Movement.

I tell Lee and he shakes his head, knowing this could be the end. I go get the thermometer. As we walk into the buck’s pen, he just stands there. I walk up to him and scratch the top of his back. He stands there. Not good. I then get hold of his horns. He just stands there. Lee comes up and gets hold of his horns and braces himself for the buck to explode. Nothing. I stick the digital thermometer up the buck’s rear. He doesn’t move. Not even when the beeper goes off. He doesn’t have a temp. What now?

If he doesn’t have a temp, he doesn’t have an infection, so no antibiotics. What do I do when I don’t know what to do? I worm and give fortified B-complex shots. So I did that. He still doesn’t move. Lee turns him loose, and I stand there scratching his back, puzzling over this new tame buck.

I go back and sit back down on the water tub and ruminate on all this. I go over all the diseases I’ve been reading about. I finally decide on bloat, even though his belly really doesn’t look bloated, or urinary calculi.

I go to my goat medicine cabinet and get out generic milk of magnesia, baking soda, banamine for pain, and if it is urinary calculi, I get out my methigel. I decide against sitting a big buck like that up on his rear and trying to pull out his privates to see if any of it is purplish in color, meaning a "stone" caught that is holding his water back. No way. I put that goat health idea aside.

Once again I go into his pen and he lets me catch him. Lee comes in and holds him and I drench the big buck with the generic milk of magnesia, the baking soda, give him a shot of banamine, and squirt methigel down his throat. Lee turns him loose and goes back to doing chores and I sit back down on the water tub and study the buck. Half hour later the buck is walking briskly around, eating hay, drinking water, going out grazing, even chases the livestock guard dog to play. Wow. And, he’s keeping away from me.

I tell Lee if that buck comes up demanding another pain shot, I’m going to be highly suspicious, especially if he lets me scratch his back.

All my health reading has paid off. The buck is well and back to his normal self with just the use of a few medicines. I didn’t have to do anything exotic, just study every disease in the book, memorize, and buy all the medicines. Well, at least some, I’m still waiting for some African medicines to arrive. And, now I have my stampeding buck back. Life is good.

THE END