Our TN Adventure: Our Boy Bruschi

On February 12th we lost our beloved wether Bruschi.

Bruschi

When we first decided to get goats we knew we would need a buck for breeding. In the dairy goat world bucks (boy goats) live separate from the girls most of the time. Since they live separate and goats are herd animals we knew we needed to get our buck a friend.

In comes Bruschi. He is what is called a wether. He is a boy goat but can't have any babies.

Bruschi is a cross between a Nubian and a LaMancha. He is just the sweetest boy ever. We loved all of his silly antics and we lovingly called him monster often, since he was the biggest goat we had here but was always causing mischief.

Every morning he would push his way out the door to get fed in the morning. Then when it was time to go back in he would just stand there and not move until you gave him a hug. He would always stand real still and put his head next to yours and lean his chin on your shoulder.

As hard as we try sometimes things don't work out how we would like or want. I noticed Bruschi's stool wasn't looking normal. When this happens I bring a sample into the vet and she checks it under the microscope to see what is wrong. In this case it was stomach worms. Normally we just go ahead and worm them and recheck in two weeks. We went ahead and did this. His new fecal sample showed he still had worms and we needed to dose him again. Which we did.

Over the span of 5 weeks we worked closely with our vet to find out and discuss what was wrong and what action we should take to make him better. He was doing okay for the first 3 weeks and then completely went down hill. I brought him to the vet to be seen along with another fecal. His worm load was gone but the effects from shedding all those worms had taken a toll on his body. He was severely anemic and dehydrated. The vet did all she could and we brought him home. From there he continued to go down hill and passed away that evening. I take some comfort in knowing he didn't pass away alone. Me, Hailey & Drew were all with him, showing him our love and talking to him.

Later that evening I called Pat & Katie who I bought Bruschi from and told them what happened. Pat told me about a place that I could bring Bruschi and have what's called a necropsy (autopsy for an animal) done on him which would tell us exactly what happened. Pat was kind enough to go with me the next day to show me where I needed to go and what I needed to do. They pathologist called me before I even got home with the findings which were exactly was the vet had said. Severe dehydration and severe anemia due to a overload of worms.

It's been over 2 weeks now and I still miss him terribly. I still look for him when I see the herd out in the big pasture. I know he is in a better place now and has some peace.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my sweet Bruschi.