Longtime local journalist Bill Radford and his wife, Margaret, live on 5 acres in the Falcon area with chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, a flock of parakeets, goats and two horses. Contact Bill at billradford3@gmail.com.
On the road to recovery: one goat, one vet clinic
By Bill Radford
It was our visiting daughter, Hope, who first noticed the problem with Chica the goat.
One udder was dramatically larger than the other; we had noticed a size difference in the past, but that difference had grown much bigger.
Concerned, my wife, Margaret, got online to do some research. Her tentative diagnosis: mastitis. “Mastitis is inflammation of the mammary gland, usually caused by an infectious process,” explains goats.extension.org. “The most prominent signs are painful, hot, hard and swollen udders, with decreased milk production.”
Well, decreased milk production wouldn’t be an issue; Chica is a dairy goat, but it has been years since she had babies (before we owned her), so she shouldn’t be producing any milk. But mastitis still seemed the most likely explanation for the distended udder.
The next step was to find a goat-treating vet. In the past, we had used Airway Veterinary Hospital in Colorado Springs; a vet there had stitched up a gaping wound in the side of our first goat, Nana, and also euthanized another goat, Christmas, when she suffered a devastating infection that couldn’t be conquered. But that vet is gone and the practice no longer treats goats.
Let me back up for a bit of Radford goat history here. Nana is a rescue goat; Hope found her at the Powers Ranch (now gone) on the east side of Colorado Springs. Nana was a baby then, her ears shredded by dogs or some other predator. We were boarding horses at the Powers Ranch at the time; and, with the help of others doing the same, set up a pen and took care of Nana there. When we moved out to the prairie more than a decade ago, Nana came with us. We got Christmas from a rescue group in Black Forest as a companion for Nana; she came to us two days before Christmas, thus her name.
Chica is a breed of goat called a LaMancha, known for, among other things, its small ears. We got Chica from a couple in Hanover; we wanted a LaMancha because of our affection for another such goat that resided at the Powers Ranch, named Mr. Spock.
Our newest goat, Pepe, simply showed up in our neighborhood one day. A couple down the street took him in for a bit, then offered him to us so he could have some goat buddies. Margaret and I disagree whether Pepe, the only boy, or Nana is the leader of the pack. But it’s clear that poor Chica is at the bottom of the pecking order. When we tried for an up-close inspection of Chica and her udder, Nana kept preventing it by slamming into us and/or Chica. Whether she was trying to protect Chica or was jealous of the attention, we’ll never know.
Margaret’s search for a large-animal vet led her to Colorado Equine Veterinary Services in Peyton. The receptionist explained they didn’t typically see goats, but they did have a veterinarian who was comfortable with them.
“We don’t have a horse trailer, so the plan was to load Chica into our Subaru Forester. Easier said than done. It was simple enough to get her to the car; she’s the friendliest of our goat trio and happily followed us to the Forester. But she wasn’t keen on getting in; it took the help of a neighbor kid to get the protesting, 140-pound Chica into the back.”
Bill Radford
We don’t have a horse trailer, so the plan was to load Chica into our Subaru Forester. Easier said than done. It was simple enough to get her to the car; she’s the friendliest of our goat trio and happily followed us to the Forester. But she wasn’t keen on getting in; it took the help of a neighbor kid to get the protesting, 140-pound Chica into the back.
I had asked Margaret the night before what vet we were going to; she couldn’t recall the exact name, “Colorado Equine something.” I asked her if it was Colorado Equine Veterinary Services, because I knew their clinic had burned to the ground in a fire, and she said, “No, no, it’s not the one that burned down.”
But it was. The office building was destroyed in the fire that raged early in the morning of March 25. Luckily, the nearby barn used to house animals was not affected. And the team at Colorado Equine Veterinary Services seems to have barely missed a step; a new office has already been wheeled in, standing next to the remains of the earlier one, and the vets have continued to see their four-legged patients.
The practice, founded by Dr. Greg Brown and Dr. Clint Unruh, celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, according to a piece of history on its website. “Initially, the business consisted of two personal trucks and a phone number,” the history reads, but it grew quickly.
Dr. Issey Chew-Chin, who took care of Chica, has been part of that growth. She joined the practice in 2021 and apparently has built a reputation; a few days after she saw Chica, I saw a post on Nextdoor from a person looking for a goat vet and someone quickly recommended, “Dr. Issey!”
The team was a bit surprised to see Chica stuffed in the back of a Subaru; they, naturally, had been looking for a trailer. But once we got her out of the car and into the barn, Dr. Issey gave her a thorough exam, including squeezing to extract what seemed an amazing amount of a milky liquid from the distended udder. Her diagnosis was also an infection; with the help of lab work, it was determined to be a staph infection and an antibiotic was prescribed, so hopefully Chica is well on the road to recovery.
Colorado Equine Veterinary Services seems to be on that road to recovery as well following the fire. A GoFundMe campaign was started to further that recovery; go to gofundme.com/f/colorado-equine-vet-services-rebuild-efforts.
