This entry actually started about two months ago. We were much newer at "goating" and still reading our goat how-to manuals for the first time. One morning while hanging out in the yard, I noticed Emerson urinating (can I just say "peeing?") three times in a short while. Recalling that neutered male goats can develop a dread malady known as urinary calculi, my alarmist personality kicked in and I panicked. Was he just marking his territory like a dog on every mailbox - or was this something serious? Time for some internet research.
Basically, neutered male goats ("wethers") are at risk for this condition, something like human kidney stones, due to their narrow urinary tract. It has something to do with an imbalance in the ratio of calium to phosphorus in their system and is affected by all sorts of things - what they eat (how many weeds, what kind of hay, what type of grain), at what age they were banded, fluid intake, etc. Some you can control (like, never give them alfalfa hay, only timothy), while others are more difficult, like "Encourage your goat to urinate frequently." (Anyone have any ideas how to do this?? The sticker charts I used while potty training my own children years ago are not working!)
In my online reading, I came across something I had not found in any of our books. This is one of those words which seems fun to say, but then you wish you hadn't learned it! Apparently male goats have something called a "pizzle," a very narrow "curly-cue" extension on the end of their...well, the only male part our goats have left. The pizzle is akin to the human appendix, according to this website, in that it serves no useful function and can sometimes cause problems. Because it is the narrowest part of the urinary tract, the pizzle can occasionally be the very spot where a calculi-stone is lodged, and if the pizzle is removed, the stone can be passed. Ideally this would be a job for an experienced vet, but in the event of a natural disaster preventing your vet's arrival (like a freak flood, earthquake or hurricane - nothing we see here...), a goat owner can apparently perform this procedure - restraining the already-hysterical goat, you use sterile scissors to locate, draw out and then snip off the tiny pizzle extension, being careful of course not to snip off too much or your goat will have a whole new problem... As this can be a life-saving maneuver I filed it away in my storehouse of goat knowledge, but all I could think of that day was, "Oh, please don't ever let me have to do this!!" (And by the way, false alarm, I now realize Emerson has certain spots in the yard he likes to regularly "water" and that's just who he is...)
Now the serious part. The whole pizzle thing has been the source of many jokes in our family, but we have learned that urinary calculi is nothing to laugh about. This is an awful, painful, incurable condition. We met a goat owner who lost both her pet bucklings to this while they were only a few months old. I almost cried hearing her story. Today was "Farm Animal Day" at the camp where the girls and I volunteer, and I had a long conversation about goats with the woman who brought her cows and chickens to show the children. Her family recently got out of raising meat goats ("too much work") but she also shared the heartbreaking story of how her son's bottle-raised wether developed urinary calculi during a goat show at the local fair and had to be euthanized right there as he was in so much pain. We are meticulous in doing everything we can to keep our goats healthy, but there is always an underlying worry - are we doing enough? One thing I know - every time I see Emerson or Elliot urinating effortlessly in the grass, I breathe a little sigh of relief. Safe for now, at least. Who would have thought a goat peeing could be such a beautiful thing?
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