Meet Rerun! He's the newest member of our furry, feathered, and fuzzy friend group at Dream Catcher Meadows. Although he has only been here since July, he has become a favorite friend of the emu brothers, Bubbles and Big Bird, who were still babies when he arrived. (Rerun got his name from the friend of Charlie Brown who appeared in the earlier comics but not any of the Peanuts cartoon movies.)
Most people may not know that baby goats (called "kids") are taken away from their maaa-mas at birth and bottle fed. For the first 3-4 weeks, they get 3 or 4 bottles a day, but by a month old, they are only fed twice a day. Most of the boy goats are "fattened up" to be sold for slaughter. Rerun was born at a dairy farm with a birth defect called cryptorchid (undescended testes). Since mom gave birth later than the other goats at the dairy farm, he was only fed twice a day. So by a month, he was severely malnourished. A kind farm worker took him to his house and called another sanctuary that called us to let us know about Rerun.
We immediately washed him with Dawn dish soap to clean off the goat lice, which he was infested with. This was recommended by the veterinarians we have taken our other goats to. We took little Rerun to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's New Bolton Center the day after picking him up from Eastern, MD. There, they treated him for an umbilical infection and intestinal parasites, which he was infected with. They also found he was anemic and had copper toxicity. After a few months of treatment and growth back at the farm, we returned to the New Bolton Center in the Fall of 2024 for his cryptorchid surgery.
Rerun is a great example of our mission as a farm animal sanctuary: to provide a loving, safe, and nurturing environment for animals - many of them rescued with birth defects like his, or injuries that led to them being lame, like Kingston our horse, or orphaned like Noah our pig. Volunteers and visitors to the farm are able to interact with the animals, care for them, and enjoy each other's comfort and companionship. Our lovely 4-legged and winged friends make Dream Catcher Meadows a very special place to learn how we can do more to protect our Earth for all her creatures and keep ourselves healthy and safe!