LAWSUIT THREATENED by Goat Hoarder

In a previous post, I reported on a story of a man in Vermont who has 70 goats in his house. Apparently, he believes the reporting of his controversy with authorities has been inaccurate. According to an email I received from the man's son, unless there is "a short correction of the worst errors" in the story, a lawsuit is threatened. However, he may be willing to accept a load of hay. Since I can't afford a load of hay, I'll publish the entire email from Nic Weathersbee.

here is what my father sent to the AP...thought I would pass it on to you as well.


Dear Mr. DeSilva:

The subtended AP file, which brought a private person (me) widespread ridicule and adverse publicity, contains the following numerous errors (highlighted in red [ed. note - bolded & italicized instead]):

The only thing weird about our plight is that the state of Vermont should have spent three years trying to close down a legitimate goat farm, in which my mother invested some $500,000, for the sin of being a slaughter-free, cruelty-free operation. The state has denied us eligibility for loans that are routine for other Vermont farmers, on grounds that cannot be attempted to be believed.

Baaaaaad goat odor, apart from being a flabby effort at a pun (the flabbiest of wit), is a calumny against the goat, who is one of the cleanest, most fastidious, and least odourous of the human and non-human animals with which man associates.

Only the dominant buck (male) goat in rut develops a strong odour, which attracts does (females) and causes them to ovulate. We have about 80 intact males here, right next to a road down which daily pass more malicious busybodies than any little town like Corinth has a right to expect. Yet in almost eight years there has not been a single complaint about odour. About everything else, but not odour. Odour did not figure in the state raid at all.

This sort of easy gag helps to perpetuate a consumer reticence about goat products that the nascent American goat industry strives mightily to overcome.

Have collided. The goats haven't collided with my religious convictions at all. Rather, my seven-year observation of their complex society, their manifest ability to love one another, their demonstration of the whole spectrum of emotional and psychological phenomena than man likes to think peculiar to himself, are what engendered in me a profound spiritual awakening.

Lynn Margulis in Symbiotic Planet points out that all creatures on Earth today have evolved for exactly the same length of time, and thus are equally 'highly' evolved. Man places himself at the top of a ladder that does not exist. If this is so at the mundane level of physical organisation, it is doubly so, a million times so, before god. The Christian Bible says god loves all her creatures. True love is not graduated.

In a ... definitely stinky way. See above. Not stinky at all, let alone 'definitely.'

Three goats ... now there are 300. There has been no willy-nilly population explosion, as implied here. We started at this farm with about 40 goats, with the idea of building the two herds -- cashmere and dairy -- up to about 150 individuals each, through purchase and breeding. The present herd size was planned. What was not planned was who mated with whom. The bucks took this issue in their teeth, broke out, and had their way with the ladies two years running. We have now brought breeding under control and do not plan any more additions to the herds for several years.

Living in his house. The house was empty and unused when I moved the goats in. I live elsewhere.

I converted the house into kidding quarters and hospital because it could be kept warm in cold weather, because ill goats could be isolated and kept quiet in the smaller rooms, and because I could reclassify it as a non-taxable agricultural building, instead of as a taxable dwelling.

Your wire story was drawn from a well-done and complete feature in the Valley News that had even the humane-society people saying it was a smart move to bring the goats into the house during this past winter's brutal cold.

A mix of goat droppings and hay. The house became another barn. It is usual to bed goat barns with hay or straw in winter. It is usual for goat faecal pellets to fall down onto the hay when discharged, rather than, say, flying out the window. All of the implied or outright sarcasm and derision that your story engendered nationwide amongst smart-aleck city comedians is directed at farming practises that are commonplace. The only unusual step I took was to convert an empty, useless dwelling that costs me $350 per month in taxes into an agricultural facility that will cost me about $20 per month in taxes.

Seized 44 deemed unhealthy by a veterinarian. The veterinarian in question was the state vet whose office had launched the raid in the first place. He was working under a massive conflict of interest that must have coloured his judgement markedly, and he has no particular competence with goats.

The probable cause for the raid, according to the state trooper who headed it, was a letter that I had written to Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas asking for justice in getting a state loan. The trooper claimed that the letter stated I had 'starving animals' on the property. My letter said no such thing.

When the raiders found no starving goats, they seized 44 more or less at random for such things as hoof trimming, matted hair coats, and low body scores. The state vet declared these relatively trivial problems to be sufficient cause to seize these animals, presumably just to cover his derriere. How would it have looked if he had been honest and had said that after all the hoopla and expense of the raid, there were no animals that needed seizing?

They left behind a number of goats with more health problems than the ones they took, confirmation of the arbitrary nature of the seizures. They left behind babies crying for their seized mothers.

They took our aged Tasha. She was in the terminal stages of cancer. She was not in pain, she was eating well, and she could have made it to spring to die in the sun. But left in a strange place after a two-hour cattle-trailer ride, she gave up and quit eating. She died after six days in the state's 'care.'

These people, whom you presented around the world as the dispassionate 'authorities,' are stupid, ill-informed, narrow, arrogant, opinionated, self-righteous, rigid, malicious, base, cowardly, the clumsy killers of my beloved old friend Tasha. Tasha was the first milker in the herd. She might have died as she had lived, loved and caressed by me and everyone, and surrounded by the usual dozen or so kids who treated her as Auntie Tasha. Faugh! I didn't even see her off.

We maintain animals here who are skinny, obviously ill, handicapped, or aged. We are a no-slaughter, no-cruelty farm. On ordinary livestock farms, such animals are routinely culled (killed) whilst they still have some meat value. We are being castigated by people who promote slaughter, for the presence here of animals kept for reasons that most good folks would regard as humane.

'He has more goats than he can care for.' I agree with this statement if you add the word I am always careful to use, 'optimally,' to the end of the sentence. For the past three years, since the principals of what was to have been a commercial goat operation left, I have struggled simply to keep as many as possible of my friends alive, with almost no money.

It has been a lifeboat operation, sheer survival. No one in the herd, including me, is overweight -- I lost about 40 pounds over this winter. Grain for all goats was a luxury we could not afford. Hoof trimming, needed but not vital to survival, had to be ignored in favour of giving shots, begging hay, and other tasks that are vital. As for matted coats, no sane goatherder tries to groom non-show goats in a 300-strong herd. We'll shear them when the time comes, and there will be no talk of matted coats.

The State of Vermont, and now Gov. Jim Douglas's office too, owns a large share of the responsibility for our difficulties. Had we been granted the loans of public money we sought, for which we have been eligible and qualified all along, and which were our right as Vermont residents, we would have been in business more than three years ago, and the raid would never have been conceived. Instead, the state tried to starve us out for our agricultural unorthodoxy, then they charged us with starvation.

Weathersbee ... admits he cannot afford to give the herd sufficient care. Weathersbee admitted to no such thing, nor could he have, as it is not true. Given its very wide circulation, this false statement may easily prejudice my trial should I be charged with animal cruelty. The word I used, most deliberately, was 'optimal,' not 'sufficient.'

The latter can be the basis of a cruelty charge. The former merely states that we could be doing better, if we had the resources. As far as I am concerned, with the weight of a 40-year journalistic and editing career behind me, this statement libels and defames me, and could form the basis of a suit at law.

By hook or by crook, but mostly by the love of god, we have gone for three years without the goats' missing a day's hay or grass. At times the hay has not been what it should, or the pasture has been skimpy. These are the vicissitudes of all life forms, including humans.

In ordinary Christianity we are taught to take what god gives us each day, to accept god's will lovingly and without complaint, whether we think it pleasant or unpleasant. I think this applies equally to all god's creatures, goats too. We have had some hard times. But people in a lifeboat do not complain that they're being abused or treated cruelly. They are thankful they didn't drown when the ship sank.

He refuses to get rid of the animals. Another prejudicial misstatement. I have repeatedly told everyone that the goats are not mine. They are leased, under an iron-bound lease designed to protect them from human greed and abuse. The lease specifically forbids 'getting rid of' any non-human animal.

The lease aside, it should not be forgotten that we have spent years and many thousands of dollars to build the herd up to this level. Many of the 100 or so animals we purchased cost from $100 to $200 each. Some bucks born here are worth thousands as breeding stock. Why would I be anxious to 'get rid of' such valuable goats? They are my friends and family, and the basis for any business we might launch. Besides, the humane-society officer candidly acknowledged that she could not guarantee that adopters would not abuse or kill their charges. Of course I resist giving up the goats!

Under certain conditions, the entire lease may be transferred to a new lessee. At the present time I am negotiating just such a transfer, to protect the herd after my death. In that sense I am 'getting rid of' all the animals.

His Buddhist religious views. Though I hold many, many Buddhist teachings to be true and precious, particularly the teachings of universal compassion and the sanctity of all life, I am not a Buddhist. I follow a fairly conventional path based largely on core Christian teachings.

His only income is from monthly disability checks. Anyone with a calculator who cares to multiply $150 by 30 (=$4,500), will see that our costs far outstrip any disability cheque ever awarded. In fact my income is only part of what the farm receives, which comes from diverse and often charitable sources. My step-daughter Kirste, for example, punted a few bucks on the ponies at the track where she works, and won enough to send us $1,200 last month, an enormous help. As I tried to make clear already, we expect god's help if we are to do god's will, and for three long years the hay has always been there.

In exchange, he wants to remain with the goats, living in the barns and fields. Someone who read this accused me of just seeking a cushy nest. In fact I have offered to the organisations I have approached to work here for nothing, caring for the goats and supervising cheese making, until I drop dead. I have also offered to continue to pay the mortgage with my disability income, a contribution of about $800 per month, not pocket change.

Obviously I cannot expect AP to cram all the above niceties and details into such a short file. But I do expect your correspondents to be skilful enough at their professions not to libel people, and not to defame or deride private citizens with so little basis in fact. I have not yet been charged with a crime, I do not seek publicity. This damnable little squib has gone half around the world. I have had to endure burdensome feedback from it already. It has been published in on-line media such as Planet Ark that are accessed by the target consumers for our cheese, and thus may do us material harm. It was even published in Czechoslovakia!

I expect you to take seriously the potential for a lawsuit. I expect a short correction of the worst errors to be published on the same page that carried the original story, in every medium that published it (a Google search of +Weathersbee+goat+Vermont will tell you which they were).

If corrections are published as I ask, I will take no further action. If my expectations are unreasonable, then explain why in an e-mail, and tell me what would be a reasonable remedy. I will accept a load of hay from Barry Stryker, our hay guy. Ignoring me is your surest route to a letter from my nasty lawyer. After all the harm the state has done to us, compounded by the national ridicule stemming from your AP story, I have had it up to here with people refusing to behave like decent human beings.

With my kindest regards,

Chris Weathersbee
manager, Marymead Farm

Frankly, I think Mr. Weathersbee has said everything that needs to be said.