This is not something that I really want to write about. I like to write about happy things in our life. But, maybe this would help someone in the same situation one day or maybe someone reading this would have answers to my concerns.
We have dairy goats. If you’ve never been around dairy goats before, you may feel like I did before we got ours. Don’t they butt you? And climb on your car and eat tin cans? Happy to say, none of those things are true! Our goats are very gentle and super sweet!! We love our goats!!
Neither Randy or I had ever milked a goat, or any other animal, before. It really wasn’t that hard to learn and I milked them every morning for about 6 months before I went back to work and then Randy took over that chore. I actually missed it! You really get to know them when you’re that close to them. They each have their own little personality and demeanor. At the time, we had two nannies, Nannette and Georgette and their babies, Maisy, Polly, and Louis.
Nannette got really sick this past fall. We didn’t know what was wrong. She was laying down and wouldn’t get up. She was very stiff legged and her jaw was very tight. We took her to a vet. He thought she had lockjaw and gave her medication for it.
She did not improve with the medication. I was hand feeding her and giving her water through a syringe to keep her hydrated. She was so pitiful. It was hard to just let her lay there and not help her more!
To make a long story short, she did not have lockjaw. She had something called Listeriosis. She passed away about 5 days later. I was so upset with that vet! He should really know about this disease, it’s fairly common. And with the correct medicine, she could’ve improved and possibly lived!
Fast forward to this week, Georgette is showing signs of having listeriosis now. This breaks my heart!! We are giving her medication but it doesn’t seem to be working. It makes me so sad! We don’t really know what to do at this point. We are going to continue to watch her and give her love and medicine and just pray she pulls through.
I read on the internet that sometimes one goat can be a carrier of listeriosis but never show signs of the disease. We were trying to remember when we bought Napolean, our buck. And realized it was right before Nannette got sick. We are looking into having some tests run on him to see if he is a carrier. We definitely don’t want any other goats getting sick!
If you know anything more about this disease please let me know!! As you can tell, we are very upset about this! -amy
goodwill hunting 
oh Amy that is awful! I hope your little goat gets better!
aww, such a bummer, poor little thing. I hope she pulls through!