Email from a stranger…
On Friday, May 17, 2024, we received an email from Jolene Davis. We had never met, or had any correspondence with her before her email. In early 2023, we sold two, weanling doelings for $900 to a gentleman North of Fort Worth, TX. The gentlemen and his family were first-time goat owners. He arrived to our farm where he was going to travel home with the doelings loose in the back of his car. Typically, we introduce the goats to the perspective buyer, if they are satisfied with the goat(s), we go over paperwork: test results and vaccines that were given to the dam, as well as the kids.
Our test results are in a binder where we have kept records since 2018, which was during our first full-year of having a goat herd. We point out the dam from the test results and let them see the negative results. That’s not hard since they are all negative. Until 2024, we displayed each G6S results on each goats page, but took them down to allow our perspective buyers to view them at pickup, and not have people we did not sell to copy them without our permission.
After showing the gentleman test results for the doelings, we explained our vaccine protocol, along with when they would need their next doses. Once the transaction was completed we realized he had no way to transport the doelings, so we gave him a large, older, dog kennel to safely transport them home. He owned them for most of the year when he contacted us and explained he did not have time for the goats as they hoped they would, and wanted to know if the doelings had champion genetics. We sent him links for the sire and dams that would help him market the doelings.
On Friday, May 17, 2024, we received the following message from Jolene Davis:
As you can see from the email, she accused us of selling or putting down Jasmin, a doe that we delivered on our farm and cherished. Seeing this accusation was insulting as we had tragically lost our doe (we didn’t call her Jasmin, but a different barn name) just a week before this email arrived and were still reeling from her death. Our doe was not put down, she died of an aneurism. She had delivered twins three weeks before and they were not bottle raised. They were on their dam and we was struggling to get them to survive.
What we don’t see in Jolene’s email is that she didn’t request negative results from the seller she bought the goats from, nor did she test them until they were off of our farm for over a year. Why would she not test a goat that had been off the breeding farm for over six months and then wait as long as she did to test them? After we explained to a friend this lady’s vitriol toward us, she found photos of her with her goats that she had owned since June of 2016. Longer than we’ve owned goats! Why would she not test?
In her later emails, she stated she went off what we posted from being a negative tested herd, but as we all know, goats can pick up CAE through not only milk, but also blood and serum. What were these babies exposed to in the year they were off the farm? Also, why is she not re-testing through a different reputable lab? After she emailed, goading and demanding to see our test results, accusing us of selling or killing our doe, we did some more of our own research and found that goats can also be exposed to CAE through sheep, deer, cattle, and it can even be transmitted by biting flies. We also found that there are a high number of false positives from stressed, sick, breeding, or nursing goats.
Instead of attacking the breeder who has not had the goats in our care for over a year, she should have requested tests from the seller. After several email exchanges, we asked her not to contact us anymore, since we felt it was harassment. She has continued to email. We are glad that after the first email exchange we did not share our test results with her, because no matter what we supplied, she was still going to accuse us of doing something wrong. We think the only time she may believe it is when we submit it to a judge as evidence. She was not our customer and we didn’t feel comfortable with supplying test results with our contact information on them to a person who insulted us from the get-go and basically called us liars, scammers, and has threatened to slander us.
Full Disclosure
Below is the email exchanges for full disclosure.
Below are photos sent to me. I do not know if this is Mrs Davis or not, but I did admire the goats. The photos are from as far back as 2016-2017. If that is the case, she would know better than we do to get testing on goats she planned to purchase.
Footnote:
We also emailed the gentleman that purchased the goats from us, asking for further information, but he has not responded.
And for those who are asking why we don’t just supply her with our test results?
First, there is nothing we supply that she would ever believe with the amount of insinuation and accusations she has thrown our way.
Second, it has our contact information on it. If we blotted out any part of that test result, she would accuse us of corruption.
Third, now it’s a matter of principle. You don’t take animals away from a farm for over a year and who knows what they’ve been exposed to, or been through and then accuse the breeder of wrong doing when she should have requested tests prior to purchase.
Lastly, we don’t care to be falsely accused. I would rather show it to a judge when I submit it as evidence, especially if she has the idea of continuing to goad, insinuate, accuse, and slander.
Another thing, she mentioned we changed our herd name, possibly because we had a HOT herd. Like I previously mentioned, we still have all our test results from 2018. We changed our herd name because the new name better aligns with our beliefs – see our, “About Us” page to read more about it.
So, for all the wonderful people that have purchased kids from us, or plan to, we will still show our negative test results when you pick up your kid(s).
~*~ Christie ~*~