A few days ago I had to take my Bukri
(female goat) to the vet. It either ate something that it should not have or it
was still adjusting to the food I was giving it. There is a lot to think about
when taking care of goats for the first time. I had gotten quite a bit of
advice on what kind of foods I should be giving and what I should not be
giving. Problem was the advice was different depending on whom I talked to. It
is like making cae (tea) here, but I will get into that another time.
Thankfully after talking to quite a few people (possibly goat experts, well
they owned one or two) I finally found two kinds of food that would be good to
give my goats. It was great language learning, as I had to practice a lot of my
Urdu to figure it out.
Anyways,
the Bukra (male goat) has always been in great shape. In fact when I brought
the guy home he would just munch on dry leaves and sticks and would not even
touch the green stuff. He jumps around and plays, but the Bukri was a sorry
sight. She had straight up diarrheal, was very stinky and would not play. So
after a week of this, I broke down and went to Saleem’s house. I brought my
language teacher Asif with me as Saleem is okay with English, but still
struggles quite a bit and I know a bit of Urdu but struggle a lot. So Asif was
a long just to make sure we were all on the same page.
First
Saleem was telling me to rent the hospital van, but I thought this might be a
bit messy for the hospital van so I told him I would pay for a ChinChi. For
those who have no idea what a ChinChi is, a ChinChi is a versatile taxi in
countries like Pakistan. It is motorbike operated carriage. It is cheap and
small and it can carry whole families and their goats. At first I was a bit
apprehensive about taking the goat on a ChinChi, but I remembered I had seen
stranger things here in Pakistan (I was just talking to my fellow missionary
Bo, and he was telling me a story about seeing a donkey being loaded on a
ChinChi, I’ll tell that story later). So we went and the ChinChi driver thought
nothing of it. The only time people looked at us weird is when they figured out
I was a white man with a goat.
We
finally found the vet down a quiet street. We brought the goat up the
relatively clean steps and then tied it to the railing. The bukri proceeded to
soil the clean stairs, and again no one seemed to care. The vet came out of his
shop, took one look at the goat and went back in with Saleem in tow. They spoke
some fast Urdu and then he pulled out a sachet of medicine and gave it to
Saleem. We then left and I again pulled my Bukri up onto the seat beside me and
we travelled back home. Asif told me that the vet had given a little medicine I
was supposed to give half the sachet today and if it was still not fixed,
possibly more tomorrow. Then, because Saleem said that the goat had a
temperature he stopped off at a pharmacy and grabbed some medicine to bring
down the fever.
When
we got home, he got a syringe and we gave the bukri her medication, which
turned out to be the equivalent to Tylenol and Imodium. Who knew these things
would also help a goat. I was a bit sceptical that it would help, but sure
enough Bukri has normal small droppings and jumps around and tries to head bunt
people she does not like. It could be the medicine and it could also be the
fact that I moved her to another patch of grass where she cannot eat vines
(some vines can be toxic to goats). Also, because Asif was worried that she was
getting cold at night where the temperature plummets to 10 degrees Celsius at
most, (he’s never been to Canada) I built her a little lean-to.
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