Using a 170-degree kitchen oven to warm the little goat, whom he named Goliath, Dennis Albaugh was desperate to save the baby goat. Its mother had rejected it due to having a bad birthing earlier in the week. Since then, the weather had been at record lows, which left the tiny goat barely alive in the barn by the time Albaugh found him.
I was hopeful, but I wasn’t really optimistic it would work. …I looked and started to see him breathing better. I could see his heartbeat was getting stronger. He still wasn’t moving though. …You could see he was fighting for his life now.
The week Goliath was born, the National Weather Service posted there were 67 record lows broken on Monday and Tuesday. It was decided the only chance for Goliath was to bring him in and slowly thaw him out in the oven, after a family meeting. Everyone took turns watching the tiny goat so he would not get too hot or watching to see if the oven went out. Even the family dog took turns caring for the baby goat, as seen in the video above. However, little Goliath did not make it, passing away the next day. His internal organs had too much damage due to the amount of cold that had settled.
Unfortunately, Goliath did not get the colustum, or first milk, he needed from his mother, as she had rejected him from the very beginning. Called liquid gold, it is a thick, yellowish milk full of antibiotics for the newborn’s immune system and is chock-full of nutrients. Developed in the latter stages of pregnancy, if Goliath had received this, the little guy probably would not have died of the cold or had been as ill. Goat herds in Alaska have been popular, and it is a lot colder up north than here.
