Denise's Softball

Last year Miss Denise gave us a scare one day when she stayed down in the pen beneath the hay storage trailer and allowed the rest of the herd to leave for the day without her. Our good neighbor Tony spent time with me crouched beneath the trailer trying to see what we could do for the gal. At the time she seemed to be showing signs of bloat with one problem: her distended side was not on the left (where the rumen is located) but on the right. On that day when I spoke with Dr. Kinslow by phone, he made some suggestions including adding whiskey to the baking-soda-and-water drench I was already giving her. When I expressed concern about pouring the mixture down the wrong side of her throat he said something to the effect that I should not be trying to drown her, just to make her comfortable and, heck, she was going to die anyway. On that day the whiskey did seem to help her care less about her situation, and soon she was out and about with her pals again.

When this spring I saw Dr. Kinslow, on an occasion when I'd chauffeured a neighbor goat to his clinic, I mentioned our previous conversation and remarked that he had neglected to predict when Denise would die. (I exercised restraint and left out Phyllis's theory, that Denise liked the whiskey so much that she's just hanging on waiting for another belt.) The goat is still with the herd, and she still has the bulge on her right side that makes her appear as if she'd swallowed a softball.

The good doctor explained that there are only three causes of illness in animals: biological, reproductive, or mechanical. Since Denise's difficulties did not appear to be either biological or reproductive, the problem must then be mechanical. She could have a rupture or a hernia, he explained, that is causing the strange bulge in her side. Perhaps a tear in her musculature has allowed a bit of intestine to pop through the opening and bulge oddly just under her hide.

Armed with that interesting tidbit, I returned to our farm and looked again at the gentle doe. Miss Denise does not appear to be in any distress, although the bulge in her side distresses me when I look at it. We'll keep an eye on the gal. In the meantime, she can go about the business of being a momma to her 2010 kid, Costa.