It is time to decide whether or not Buckminster will be allowed to grow into a buck or have to be castrated and become a wether. Having your own buck is handy come Thanksgiving when your girls are in heat.  Otherwise, you have to take the girls on a date with the buck, wherever he is, in November or December. Right during the holidays.

But, keeping a buck can be a real pain.  They pee and slobber on themselves and stink to high heaven and have to be separated.  A wether is less  valuable, when it comes to earning his keep, but much easier to manage.

Buckminster and Me

I posted for vet recommendations on goat oriented Facebook groups and watched a million goat-centric Youtube videos. One way of castrating a baby goat is by banding.  It’s so simple that 4H youth can do it.  It is considered acceptable and humane. I watch a video of a woman and young child banding a baby goat. The baby stiffens as if it’s made of glass and falls over as if it’s dead.  After a little while it gets up and bounds off.

A stiffening body that falls straight over is a body that is trying to deal with severe trauma in my perception. The word shattered comes to mind. There has to be another way. What is an accepatble standard of animal treatment by others has always been problematic for me.  Especially growing up.

Some of my research reveals threads of people discussing taking their buckling to a city vet for castration only to have the baby die from anesthesia. A rural vet, accustomed to livestock, would know better than to administer anesthesia.  A good vet with very fast hands seems to be the method that will spare him the most trauma.

Asking a vet in a rural area to leave his practice to drive out to the middle of nowhere to castrate a baby goat shows how little I know.  I may as well have asked them if they had any massage appointments open for a buffalo.

I called Dr. Moon and his office said he can simply perform the procedure in the back of the truck. His practice works mostly with livestock. But, he was the first vet that I took our rescue bird dog, Zippy, to. I found Zippy in a ditch in 14 degree weather with a cluster of tumors on his head and a bad back leg. I’ve met almost every vet within a 3 hour radius and Dr. Moon correctly diagnosed the cause of the leg and honestly said he did not know what was on his head.  Neither did the surgeon, Dr. Dew, who did the procedure.  So, while I didn’t exactly connect with Dr. Moon, I trusted him and easily recognized him as having some sort of special talent for what he does.

I took Florentina along so that Buckminster could remain calm on the ride. They have never been apart.  I was so upset about the pain that hewould have to endure but I sucked it up and continued on. I remembered how I had looked exactly like  Melissa Gilbert’s Laura Ingalls Wilder depicted in the television show Little House on the Prairie when I was in the 6th grade. Same pigtails, buck teeth with a split and homemade clothes. I hoped to muster her prairie girl courage. “Buck up half pint”.  “Yes sir, pa.”

Dr. Moon came out to the truck with two nurses.  He gave the baby a deadening shot to the area.  Then, in two fast razor slices it was over.  The baby let out two cries and Florentina lowered her head at one of the nurses holding him, presenting her full rack. “That Mamma goat’s about to put a whoopin’ on you” said one of them. The nurses had already drawn blood and taken fecal samples from both of them.

Dr. Moon reminds me of Sam Shephard when he plays a character in one of his own plays or films. (Shepard was still alive at this time) His precision and speed made for the least amount of trauma for my boy. I drove home with the two goats in the back of the 4-runner feeling grateful and relieved; the theme to Little House On The Prairie playing in my head. “Good job half pint” my imaginary father says.  “Thanks pa.” I say in Melissa Gilbert’s voice.

The next day while I was cleaning out the back of the 4 -runner I found what looked like a little piece of rabbit fur. Alan walked up as I realized it belonged to Buckminster.  I cried again and felt queasy at the thought of his pain ridden groin. Alan hugged me until I was better. It was tough on him too. He grew up with cats.