Here we go again: Johnes. There I wrote it. I even put it in the first
sentence. Hah! Take that goat world.
Katherine has been on a wild rollercoaster of emotions dealing with the
latest outbreak of what I call “The Goat Plague.” Gossip from around the country has been
blowing up her phone to the point that she’s having nightmares and staying home
from school. Of course it’s not the
first time we’ve dealt with this scourge.
I even drafted a post about it over a year ago (a damned good one, I
might add), but my buddy talked me out of posting it for fear that young Katherine’s
budding goat business would be squashed by the wrath of the goat world.
Well, to hell with it. I’ve
spent the last couple of decades teaching my kids to live transparently, take
responsibility for their actions, and take on difficult topics head-on. Even
now. So here we go. Sorry, Julie, I know you told me not to do
this… but someone has to.
First, a little background on “The Goat Plague,” or Johnes. I’ll try not to get too technical. The Mycobacterium
avium subsp. pseudoparatuberculosis
(MAP) is a bacteria that causes unstoppable diarrhea and rapid weight
loss. The devastated animal eventually
wastes away. The bacteria is a global
problem, and can lie dormant in an animal for years before some environmental
trigger, such as stress from kidding, can flip the switch to “on.”
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| Johnes Goat |
In the meantime, the goat looks and acts
perfectly normal. Once activated, though,
the disease is transmitted via feces, body fluids and milk (doe to kid). This all translates to, “Once your goat
shows signs of it, a la holocaust
goat, you are screwed. Your “Grim
Reaper” goat has been pooping all over your field where the other little
caprines are snurfing around for grass and stuff. There is no cure and it takes two or more
years for a pasture or pen to be clear of the contagious poops. So not only are your current goats goners,
but you can’t even restart a new herd on the pasture! You have to move … or get out of goats.
And it’s not just goats.
It’s sheep, deer, cows. Maybe a
contaminated deer bounds through your pasture and poops on the way. Bam.
You’ve got The Plague.
But maybe you don’t know it…. because it doesn’t necessarily
manifest for weeks, months, years.
That’s why we test for it at least once a year. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
It started on a Friday afternoon when Julie called me in an
utter frenzy. “____ just called me. You need to call her RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I can’t say anymore because I don’t want to
spread second-hand information.”
WHAT??! First of all, Katherine
is the goat herder; not me. Why can’t
she deal with this crisis? She’s 17 and
knows way more about it than me. “NO!
This requires an adult,” Julie insisted.
What the hell? Katherine is way more grown up than me, too ….but OK.
I called _____ immediately.
She couldn’t talk because she was driving to a goat show, but she’d call
me when she got there. [BTW she called
me back 2 days later.]
I called Julie back: “OK. You can’t leave me hanging like
this. Tell me something.”
Julie: “No way.”
Me: “What if I guessed it? Would you tell me then?”
Julie: “Yes.”
OK, “20 Questions” it is then. But I already knew; I guessed it on the first
question based strictly on Julie’s level of panic. As I suspected, someone had an outbreak of
Johnes and everyone was worried that this “Johnes Joe” (sort of like “Typhoid
Mary”) had infected everyone else’s herd.
In true Goat World fashion, everyone jumped to conclusions
about WHO had the plague. I’m going to call
the target “Susan.” She’s a major
breeder in our area, as well as a goat judge and a 4H leader. She has champion bloodlines and beautiful
animals, which she sells to competitors around the entire country. She’s also active in our national
organization (www.npga-pygmy.com) on a
variety of committees. Like so many
others, she has been involved with pygmy goats for DECADES. Virtually eons! She
is a fixture of the goat show world. Moreover,
she’s Katherine’s mentor (now that Bubba has moved on).
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| www.npga-pygmy.com |
Anyway, everyone was pointing fingers at Susan: “she sold
goats to so-and-so and they have Johnes. Must’ve come from her!” “So-and-so bred her doe to Susan’s buck and
now they have Johnes. Must’ve come from
her!”
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| Fox & The Grapes |
The one text that really got under Katherine’s skin said: “
Susan wouldn’t sell me that goat that you
just bought from her. It must have
Johnes.” What? That’s fuzzy logic. I
call it “sour grapes. “ And just plain mean spirited. Why would an adult send a teenager that
message?
Rather than wallow in self-pity and
speculation, Katherine formulated a plan.
Pronto. Information is power.
Within 20 hours she had lined up all her supplies and herded
all of her adult goats into the catch pen to draw blood. It’s a two-person job, so I got recruited.
Most people call the vet to draw blood. We USED to call the vet to draw blood on all of our PREVIOUS blood testing rounds. It is a veterinary procedure, right? But not our Katherine. She’s an industrious girl, that one is. She Googled “how to draw blood from a goat”
and turned up multiple YouTube videos
on how to do just that.
Next she went to amazon.com to get her supplies. Ah,
technology.
She figured that process out a couple years ago, when she got tired of the round around with trying to schedule the vet again. She now has her own account at the lab and a
box full of supplies at the ready: syringes, needs, vials, clippers.
Good thing, too. Because we needed to get results ASAP.
Saturday we spent 3 hours drawing blood from 32 goats. Exhausting.
We’ve got it down to a system, and those vials were packed in
ice on the first UPS plane out on Monday morning, on their way to Washington
State University, overnight/express/gotta-have-it-RIGHT-now.
Next step: wait. WSU runs the test on Wednesday afternoon and
sends out results via email Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. That’s basically 5 days of waiting. Five excrutiatingly long days.
We’ve been through this drill before and had not-so-good
results. I’ll post more about that disaster
in my next blog. We are all about full
disclosure, baby, everything. But, anyway…
Katherine and I barely spoke those 5 days. She woke up with black circles under her eyes
every morning from being awoken by nightmares all night long. She would dream of reading through the
results: negative, negative, negative, positive, negative, negative. Yes, this is what 17-year old girls dream
about on a goat farm. Terrifying on so many levels.
Friday morning a photo popped up on my text messages:
Oh, thank God. All
negative. My next response was, “HAH! See that goat people? See, we do NOT
have Johnes! Woo hoo! Bite me.”
Hugh relief all around.
Katherine relaxed for the first time in a week.
Then the insidious nature of the goat world set in: the rumor
mill kicked into high gear. She got a
call from a nearby goat friend: COME QUICK! I NEED TO DRAW BLOOD! JOHNES IS
GOING AROUND AGAIN!
One of the things I like most about Katherine is that she is
selfless and kind and helpful in these situations – all without thinking twice. She ditched her afternoon classes, grabbed
her supply box, jumped in her truck, and drove over the hill to the next town
to draw blood on our friend’s 15 goats.
Doc McStuffins to the rescue again.
After everyone recovered from the stress the information began to flow.
Turns out Katherine and her friend were the last to know about
the epidemic. It’s been going around for
3 months, and people have been whispering about it at all the shows – behind Katherine’s
back.
Lets put this in perspective: Susan, the target of the rotten
gossip and Katherine’s mentor, sold Katherine a few goats this Fall and let
Katherine breed her does to Susan’s bucks.
If the whole goat community thought that Susan’s herd was
diseased, why did they not say anything to Katherine? Not a peep. No warning.
No cautionary glances. No nothing.
Katherine was tormented by the thought that her mentor would
intentionally set her up with The Plague and destroy her herd – knowingly. She started hatching schemes to return the
goats to Susan. But what to say? “Um, I
don’t like it anymore. Thanks anyway!” “My
Mom says I can’t have any more goats. 55 is just plenty.”
Nothing sounded right.
Finally, we had a flash of brilliance: why not just ask Susan
directly what’s happening? Shazam. What’s
the worst that would happen? Susan would explode and yell at her and deny it.
Or worse, confirm it.
Katherine and I role-played the various scenarios, best to
worst, and she decided that she could live with the worse-case outcome. So, off
went the text:
I’m hearing a lot of rumors about your herd having Johnes and
I wanted to talk to you about it.
There you have it. The truth. Simple. Direct. Non-confrontational.
Honest.
And scary as hell. All
the adults in the goat world chatter amongst themselves, filling in the information gaps with guesses and half-truths. Avoiding the direct approach at all costs. Like a game of “Telephone,” it distorts at lightening speed.
The response came back:
Call me
Katherine took a deep breath and excused herself to go make
the call. Fifteen minutes later she came
back with a big smile and looking more relaxed than I’ve seen her in 2 weeks.
NO JOHNES! Test results exchanged.
Proof. Confirmed. Susan’s herd is clear. So is Katherine's.
Katherine’s keeping the goats and will proudly take them to
the first show of next year. (Katherine and half of the goat world are skipping
this last show coming up next weekend – too much drama.)
I’m profoundly proud of Katherine for “taking the bull by the
horns.” She didn’t succumb to the gossip
and rumors. She didn’t make up
excuses. She went right to the source,
risking her relationship with someone whom she deeply respects.
And you know what? It turned out even better than she could’ve
imagined. Funny that.
She
maintained her relationship; she found out the truth; she made Susan feel
better. Another life lesson from the goat pen.
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| Gotta remember why we are doing this goat-thing at all |
