In Memory of the ones we lost

Before I got seriously involved with these animals there was one very distinctive looking goat family.  They were distinctive because they were brown and black while the others had much more white on them.  It was a mom and her twins.  I noticed the mom had disappeared one day and informed the owner who told me she was still there.  I had all sorts of thoughts going through my head as to what had happened to her (or what was done to her).  The day my family and I went into the field to put up the tarps on the barn, we found her deceased.  It was as if she just dropped where she had been standing and was just left there.  And while you couldn't see her body from the road, it was definitely in plain sight from within the field.  That day we also found her son deceased behind the barn leaving her daughter Clarice by herself.  That was very hard to handle knowing she was alone with the other goats who often bullied her.  She became very special to everyone who cared about these animals because of who she had lost.

Very shortly after I started to care for the animals, there was one small goat I named Oreo who didn't seem well.  I was very concerned for his health and notified the owner.  One day I came down to the field in the morning and Oreo was on the ground and could not get up.  I immediately called the owner and then the SPCA.  The officer from the SPCA came down, took photos of Oreo and the deceased goats that were still lying in the field, helped me position him so he could breath better and put up a small dog exercise pen I had to protect him from the others.  The owner informed me he had called the vet, but it may take several hours for her to get there.  I left to go to work, but I just couldn't stay so I left work after a couple of hours and went to the field to sit with Oreo until the vet got there.  Sadly, he was too far gone to help and she had to put him down.  It was devastating.  I had really hoped after this some action by the law would be taken, but nothing was done despite the photos and the investigation.

A couple of months in, one of the goats delivered a baby that I found deceased when I went in the morning to feed them.  I believe that baby belonged to the goat named Sadie.  I am not even positive Sadie was the baby's mom, but I made the conclusion based on some evidence Sadie had recently given birth.  I will never know if the baby was born dead, got injured or froze to death.

 Kylie was one of the smaller sheep who was allowed to mate with the large male sheep making delivery difficult.  I was able to confine her when I knew she was in labor and kept coming down to check on her.  Sadly, we ended up having to pull the baby out who had already passed away.  I think he had just been in her birth canal too long.  It was especially sad to see Kylie the next few days standing outside the kennel her two sisters and babies were in.  It felt like nature had prepared her to be a mom and then that was taken away from her and she didn't quite know how to process that. 

Baby Girl was a goat who was born shortly after I started caring for the animals.  She was born in the winter and when I found her, you could tell something was not right with her.  I am not sure if she was born that way or got injured after birth because she was born outside amongst the herd so an injury is possible.  After a day of her mom caring for her (in a confined kennel) it was apparent she would not going to survive and I ended up taking her home and holding her for hours.  She slept by my bed until she passed away the following day.  That was a very rough day.

Jewal was one of the adult female sheep from the original herd.  One day we noticed Jewel's face was swollen and she wasn't feeling well.  We were able to get a vet there who did x-rays and determined she had sustained an injury to her face, possibly caused by another animal.  With the help of the amazing Eleni from Wayward Ranch Sanctuary, Eleni was able to get her to Cornell Hospital, but sadly, she passed away very shortly after her arrival.  There was the belief that she may have had some type of cancer that made her especially susceptible to the injury she sustained.  I named some of the animals after people I know.  Jewel was the very last animal I named and she was the one named after me.

Jasper was Jewel's son who very tragically passed away shortly before his mother's death.  We don't know why or what was wrong with him and it was very sad to lose a lamb we had gotten to know.  During the time I cared for the animals, I came to realize that just as resilient as farm animals can be, they can also be quite delicate and once sick, they often go downhill very quickly.  As sick as Jewel was (that we weren't aware of at the time) she did her very best to care for her son and they spent a lot of time lying together in the field.  My only solace in losing Jewel was that she would be able to be with her precious son again.

Nova is the daughter of Luna and twin sister of Star.  Nova passed away at several months old of an unknown illness.  Nova is the lamb that I mourn the most because I had gotten to know her well and she was very special to me.  She would come up to me each day for a kiss and I was very attached to her.  In fact, I'm crying as I type this.  I miss her terribly and will always regret her loss.

Rose was one of the adult female sheep who had a daughter named Ruby.  Rose passed away shortly after moving to her new home in the fall of 2021.  The sheep were not in the best health when they left Brown Road and this was evidenced by her death.  Her daughter Ruby is one of the sheep who moved out to Indiana where she is thiriving.  We miss Rose, but we are so happy for Ruby that she has found her forever home.  I know Rose would be happy for her too.

Anna also died after moving to her new home in the fall of 2021, but in her case, it was a tragic accident.  She put her head through some loose fencing to eat some hay outside the fence and tragically got caught in the fencing and could not get herself untangled.  Her death was also very hard on us because her mom Betty is one of our special sheep because she is so friendly.  It was also a death that was so preventable that it was extra tragic because it should not have happened.

Over the year I spent caring for the animals we found a minimum of three additional animals who had died quite a bit before I was involved.  We found the decomposed body of a sheep in the wooded area of the field, a skull and some bones in a feed sack callously tossed into the woods and then the skeletal remains of an animal whose bones are still in a bucket in my garage.  The skull and bones in the bag are especially upsetting because someone obviously knew that animal had died and didn't even make the effort to bury the body.