Summer 2007

Goat Rancher Struggles to Survive

Story by D. Nick Potter

Main Story: The Blizzard of 2006

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The New Year’s weekend blizzard slammed goat-breeder J.D. Harrington hard. Two months after the storm, receding snows exposed dozens of bloated and coyote-ravaged carcasses.

“We’ve lost over 200 goats and we are still waiting for the snow to melt to get the total count,” Harrington said two months after the freak snow storm hit.

“We began this breeding season off great. We had a 200-percent gain on our goats. Most of our goats had twins or triplets.

“After the storm we tried to save as many goats as we could” Harrington said.

The Harrington Family prepared for the storm but no preparation feasible could have been enough for this storm. Huts were available for protection to the newborn goats and their mothers, lean barns were in place and horse trailers were opened.

But t he goats stacked themselves one on top of the other in the shelters, while the animals that could not find shelter as a last resort crawled under the horse trailers.

“The goats in the shelters were trapped, buried in the snow,” Harrington said. With their shelters covered in the snow oxygen was limited. Instead of freezing to death in the sub-freezing surroundings, many of the animals suffocated to death.

“We rushed out to the animals, digging through the snow trying to rescue as many as we could” Harrington said. “The whole family was out here digging and my girls were crying while they were pulling dead and living goats out of the snow. These goats are our livelihood but they are also our pets.”

The subzero temperatures did not allow the snow to melt and life to resume. Harrington told me that three days after the storm he was walking on top of the snow when he broke through. He landed on something that moved.

“I landed on a pile of five goats. When I figured out that I was on top of a goat I immediately began digging” Harrington said.

Five goats were found, three alive after being buried for three days. This gruesome discovery summarizes the animal rescue efforts. The sadness of death and scarring effects of disaster were coupled with the hope brought by finding life.

When I visited the area in February, the snow was just melting. The only way to get to some of the shelters was to travel on top of the snow.Some of the dead animals were still trapped in the huts because that is where the deepest snow drifts were. The huts contained kids curled up to their mothers trying to keep warm. This scene was one of the saddest scenes I encountered while observing the devastation in Prowers County.

I asked Harrington how severely this storm will impact his way of life and how it will affect him and his family financially.

“I’m not going to lie,” he said. “It is going to be hard. This summer is going to be very tough. Let’s hope nothing like this happens any time soon.”