ARLINGTON — Ellen Felsenthal grinned as a pickup truck with a bed full of Christmas trees pulled into her driveway. Butch and Roger Drake hopped out of the truck and lugged trees over to enclosures holding close to 100 ailing goats.
“Look. It’s goat Christmastime!” Felsenthal yelled as the men tossed the trees over the fence.
Goats immediately limped over to the trees and began feasting on the prickly pine branches.
All the goats have worms and lice. Many have hoof rot, which causes a limp.
None belong to Felsenthal.
But for two weeks, they have dominated her life.
The goats are orphans. Their former owner, an elderly woman who considered herself an animal rescuer, died in early December at her home near Lake Cavanaugh in Skagit County. She lived alone.
When sheriff’s deputies found her on Dec. 8, they also found 155 goats, between 20 and 30 cats, several geese, ducks and chickens, and one llama running loose on 25 acres, according to Emily Diaz, the county’s sole animal control officer.
Though the goats had enough to eat, they were clearly sick. Some couldn’t stand.
Diaz had never dealt with so many goats before.
She called Felsenthal, a goat foster parent, for help. Felsenthal, in turn, called friends to stage a rescue. Together they rounded up the goats, built fences to contain them, and loaded them into trailers headed for Felsenthal’s Arlington farm and goat sanctuary.
“The hardest part was catching them because they were so freaked out and they didn’t want to be handled or caught,” said Felsenthal, a photography professor at Everett Community College. “We had to get each one as we could — with lassos and grabbing them by the horns; just kind of cowboying them, which is not my normal way of interacting with goats.”
By Dec. 15, 11 trailers filled with goats had been unloaded at Felsenthal’s farm.
A veterinarian euthanized about 40 goats the rescue team determined could not be helped. Felsenthal buried them, some in her back yard.
The goats that remain are typical goats — unruly, stubborn and sometimes affectionate. They’ve eaten her holly tree and littered her yard with waste.
Felsenthal loves them.
She wakes at 7 a.m. and spends three hours each morning and night feeding them, cleaning their mess and checking on each goat. She also spends an hour or two each day on the phone and computer trying to find qualified families to adopt the goats.
Felsenthal has 10 goats of her own, five sheep, two horses, a pony, and a few cats and dogs. In order to care for the foster goats, she hasn’t given her other animals the attention they’re used to. Two of her goats, Stanley and Zazu, spend much of their time on top of a compost pile Felsenthal calls “Poop Mountain,” checking out the new goats, which are quarantined in a separate enclosure.
She has a pile of unopened Hanukkah presents at home and hasn’t had time to send gifts to her family in Chicago.
“She’s opened up her whole house and property,” Diaz said. “She’s just great. Her heart is definitely dedicated.”
Over the weekend, goat lovers and three volunteer veterinarians from Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital in Snohomish worked in the rain to delouse and deworm the goats and work on their sore hooves.
Around 20 goats were adopted, and 26 were placed with friends in “foster” goat pastures. About 80 remain.
Because two of the male goats haven’t been neutered (surgery is scheduled soon), it’s possible the herd will double this spring, Felsenthal said.
“It’s just kind of amazing to hear about and watch,” said Jeanne Leader, dean for the arts program at Everett Community College. “This is going beyond her own personal interest.”
Felsenthal said she has felt the holiday spirt in the donations of hay, food and money she has received as word of the goat rescue spread.
“It’s been a lot of hard work,” she said, petting a black goat. “I’ve been amazed by the support I’ve received. People I know and people I don’t know have helped. There’s no way I could do this on my own.”
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
Goat adoption
Ellen Felsenthal is looking for families to adopt around 100 goats that were orphaned when their previous owner died in early December.
Goats are social; so people interested in adopting should either already have goats or be willing to adopt a pair, said Felsenthal, who owns New Moon Farm goat sanctuary and rescue in Arlington.
Prospective owners also need space and time to care for goats properly, she said.
“I want them to be pets,” Felsenthal said. “I don’t want them to be used as food.”
For more information on the goats, go to www.newmoonfarm.org.
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