Mark R Jerkins MT Mobile Home Repair and Remodeling Liar knowingly sold contagiously diseased Nigerian Dwarf Goats Pleasanton, Texas
Buyer beware Mark R. Jerkins of Pleasanton, TX on Coughran Rd 78064 He raises birds too - watch out for him! He definitely isn't taking the best care of his goats if one of them had so many worms she DIED within a week and the other was carrying a contagious disease! We crossed his path in October 2012 because of Craigslist.
We bought one "naturally polled " Nigerian Dwarf blue eyed buck and a young Nigerian Dwarf Doe. The boy was coughing when we loaded him, but we thought it was because of the leash and the girl had some diarrhea, but supposedly it was from too much green weeds. So we handed over our money and drove away.
We isolated them from our 2 original Pygmy girl goats for one week. The Nigerian girl kept having diarrhea, and the boy kept coughing, but we hardly noticed him because the girl was acting super weak and we were worried. We called him about her having diarrhea and acting lethargic and at first he was kind of nice, but she kept getting sicker, and since we only ever bought goats once before buying from him and only had goats for one year we couldn't figure out what was wrong and kept looking online, not sure what to do. He supposedly had years of experience, and suggested it was bloat. She had a weird hole in her side that when squeezed oozed nasty yellowish white pus which he said was from another goat's horn poking her.
Finally, Mr. Jerkins agreed to take her back because i think he thought he could resell her, but she died on the way to his house! He was mad that she was dead and didn't care, just dumped her body on the ground and said there was nothing wrong with the other goat he sold us, in an angry way like we better not dare bring him back. We probably should have taken them both back at that point, but we liked the friendly buck so much we thought we could handle anything that might be wrong with him. He made it seem like we should have known that she had died of worms and it was
all our fault, but we didn't know what white eye lining meant. He gave us our hundred dollars back and walked off. We had to drive out an hour to get our refund; and it was a miserable hour drive back without the poor little doe we had tried so hard to help.
Once that ordeal passed, we began to notice more weird things about the boy, foremost that his cough was CONSTANT, he seemed to have small crusty things in the two whorls on his naturally polled head, his rear legs were very stiff, and when we were petting him one day we found some weird hairless bumps coming out of his chest. We immediately got him away from our pygmy girls and tried to figure it out. Online research indicated it must be this terrible contagious disease called Caseous Lymphadenitis, which apparently has no cure once it's contracted by goats.
We called Mr. Jerkins and asked him about it and he claimed not to know anything about it or have any advice for us. We were worried when we saw online that CL MIGHT transmit to humans, so we took him to the vet to find out once and for all what was going on. The local vet in Lytle checked the Nigerian buck's weight and temp, gave him an injection of Ivomec for his cough, in case it was caused by lungworms, a shot of B vitamins, and examined his body. She suggested that because his head hadthe whorls instead of being smooth that the little crusty things were scurs from where he had been disbudded and that he wasn't naturally polled.
She said to keep him separated from other goats and be careful in the area that he was in in case the "bumps" (abscesses) burst and we spread the disease on our shoes to other parts of our land. She suggested keeping goats off the places he had been for a solid year and to try to clean everything he contacted. When his blood results finally came back he was positive for CL and the only solution the vet could give us was to put him down as it was only a matter of time until it would spread to his organs, plus he would only be a risk to our other animals. If CL gets in an animal's lungs, it can be spread by their coughing, plus it takes months for the CL bacterium to actually manifest into abscesses since the lymph system slowly filters it.
When we found out, we quickly took our 2 pygmy does to be checked, because we were so fond of them we HAD to know if they had it because one was pregnant and we hated the thought of having to put her down. Their results came back negative, proving that it didn't come from our place, and most especially because it takes a long time to manifest like it had in the buck. We were faced with having to put the sweetest buck that ever lived down- the vet's fee to do it for us and incinerate the body was more than we could dish out, so we could only shoot him ourselves, get a burn permit, and burn his body until nothing but bones was left. But we kept him separated and put off the inevitable for a little while.
Meanwhile Thanksgiving had passed once all the results were in and we called Mr. Jerkins again. We were hit pretty hard financially and emotionally by everything, but figured that Mr. Jerkins was probably having this disease manifest in his herd by now and having a tough time. We called him and tried to talk; all he could say is "the buck was healthy". We needed to recoup some of what we'd paid and had proof that the buck came to us sick so we offered to take the buck back to Pleasanton for a refund of our $150 purchase price since we figured that Mr. Jerkins might not believe us unless he saw the abscesses and vet papers himself. Remarkably, he said he didn't want the buck back because he was diseased, and agreed to send us a refund. We gave Mr. Jerkins our P.O. box and went ahead and shot the poor dear, burning his body from morning until dark on an extremely hot fire until nothing was left.
A month passed, with not a word or a letter from Mr. Jerkins. We called; he was upset, but again promised to just refund our money. At no point did he seem interested in talking about the disease or the possibility of the rest of his herd having it. We noticed a Craigslist of his around this time where he said he was downsizing his herd. We knew it was him because the listing still had the photo of the buck we bought from him. Was he selling off his animals because they were all starting to show signs of disease?? At the time we were tempted to flag him and post what had happened, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and call him again. Due to our odd hours and bad reception, it is difficult for us to phone him at normal times, and we had lost his business card that
had his email address, but it finally turned up and we contacted him again.
This time, he demanded proof, now that the buck was gone. We scanned in the vet documents and she agreed to take his calls and talk to him personally if he wished. At this point he became quite rude and overly defensive, saying that there was no proof that the buck on the documents was the buck he sold us. But when we had the buck himself, Mr. Jerkins didn't ask for proof and believed him diseased enough to not want us to take him to his house. Still, he angrily said he would refund us the purchase price so that we would finally "leave him alone".
More than a week has passed since that email, with nothing in our mailbox. We have given up on ever getting any of the money we lost from dealing with him, and on top of it all we were forced to buy panels and build our goats a brand new pen far away from the old one, which they can't enter for a solid year. Our beloved healthy goats were put at risk, our land was ruined, we had two deaths of goats we cared about...we got nothing but heartache and financial ruin from dealing with this man.
We gave Mr. Mark R Jerkins the benefit of the doubt til the last, but we suspect he never bothered to talk to our vet nor cared to investigate the disease himself. His belligerent accusations of our lack of "proof" are only a cover for his guile and we believe he has been selling his diseased goats off to other people. The worst thing is that every herd these goats go to is doomed to spread this highly contagious disease! His promises to do right by us were empty talk to stall us from exposing his nefarious enterprise. Please learn from our hard lesson and stay away from this cold hearted dishonest man!
4 Updates & Rebuttals
RKS
Texas,Clarification
#5Author of original report
Thu, May 09, 2013
Just because some more research has shed light on the polled/horned issue i thought i'd add it in here for the record. We don't wish to falsely accuse anyone.
Spunky had whorls on his head which led us to believe he might not be naturally polled. After all, several websites said so and we had never seen a naturally polled goat before. Our calf was naturally polled and had no whorls, so that was part of what we based our opinion on, as well as the vet's assessment. Our vet does not specialize in goats, but does offer goat services and she also thought that the whorls were an indication of being naturally horned.
Upon reading some forums today, it seems that it's not impossible for goats to get weird hair patterns and have little nubs under their skin on their heads and still be naturally polled. Also they say that the hair on polled goats fluffs up more and horned goats have flatter hair. Spunky's was all sticking up between his eyes.
http://www.thegoatspot.net/forum/f193/determining-if-goat-polled-photos-122153/
The site above shows a picture of a polled kid with what seem to be whorls or something on its forehead. It is possible that what we thought were whorls on spunky was only a strange hair pattern.
So maybe Mr. Jerkins didn't lie about Spunky's horn status after all. In the end we bought sick goats from him, and he did (eventually) do right by us. Maybe we thought he knew more about goats than he actually did, and the whole mess was due to ignorance instead of malice. Who knows?
Rest in peace, Spunky.
http://www.thegoatspot.net/forum/f193/polled-104361/
http://www.thegoatspot.net/forum/f193/polled-137999/
http://www.thegoatspot.net/forum/f197/polled-140362/
http://www.goatwisdom.com/ch1baby_care/dehorning.html
RKS
Texas,Update!
#5Author of original report
Fri, March 29, 2013
Mr. Jerkins did indeed at last refund us the money for the buck, but it arrived the day AFTER the report. We were fed up after waiting so many months for it, that we honestly didn't think he was ever going to give it to us. We should have reported him much sooner, maybe we would have worked it out months before.
First of all, when the goats came home we wormed them with Safeguard for Goats, because that's all we found for goats at the feed store. Later on, it turns out that Safeguard is ineffective, but how were we supposed to know that? He did not recommend a wormer to us when we purchased the goats, and when we first mentioned the girl goat's illness he suggested it was due to bloat, which we treated her for, to no avail. Mr. Jerkins acted as though we should have known that Safeguard was ineffective, but how could we know that the feed store sold something that was USELESS. This was the second time we had EVER purchased goats, and the first ones were completely fine.
Yes, Mr. Jerkins complains that there was no proof in the lab results or vet documents, but he ignores the fact that when the buck was still alive we OFFERED to bring the buck back to show him the lumps, plus the vet papers saying what the lumps were and Mr. Jerkins said NO that he believed us and would refund us. He complains that the vet papers did not describe the buck, well he could have just CALLED the vet, as we provided her office number and email address. He only started complaining about "proof" once Spunky was dead and disposed of.
He also SAYS the test isn't accurate, but when the goat shows the symptoms AND tests positive, i think it's pretty accurate. It's only inaccurate if the goat has been vaccinated for it before, but then it shouldn't be showing symptoms. It's worthwhile to note that when a goat is vaccinated for CL it is only vaccinated for the particular strain of CL that they created the vaccine from, not ALL strains of CL. So even if a goat gets a vaccine, they can STILL get CL. Therefore, in our opinion it is not worth it to vaccinate for CL because it skews test results - in the future we will blood test all our goats bianually and any new additions BEFORE they come here and strictly separate for one whole month.
The case is closed as to where the disease came from- the small female we bought also had abscesses and none of our original goats showed the symptoms nor tested positive. We suspect that he had other goats showing signs too, how could they not considering the state of those two? But that is only speculation. If we were really extorting money from the man, wouldn't we try to charge him more than just our purchase price? He says there are no refunds at auctions, which is why we didn't want to buy at an auction, but from a REPUTABLE honest breeder of healthy goats, which we Mistook him for. There are many REPUTABLE goat breeders who do NOT have herds with CL or Johnes or CAE or any of those. They are common diseases, but they are NOT "everywhere", especially if you follow the right practices AND if you do the right thing and PUT DOWN those that have the disease, rather than pass them on to others.
We waited a VERY long time to try to work things out - we didn't even try to press for vet fees or anything because we figured he didn't have it- we just wanted our money back. We are NOT convinced that he is innocent at all, but are glad that he finally mustered the decency to at least refund us the purchase price of the buck and will never buy or sell goats with this man again, and warn everyone we meet to learn from our mistakes when buying goats in our region.
Spunky is now dead, and whatever the case, in the end Mr. Jerkins did indeed make good on his promise, albeit after several months and a lot of angry bluster.
RKS
Texas,Update!
#5Author of original report
Fri, March 29, 2013
Mr. Jerkins did indeed at last refund us the money for the buck, but it came the day after the report. We were fed up after waiting so many months for it, that we honestly didn't think he was going to give it to us. We should have reported him much sooner, maybe we would have worked it out months before.
Yes, Mr. Jerkins complains that there was no proof, but he ignores the fact that when the buck was still alive we OFFERED to bring the buck back to show him the lumps, plus the vet papers saying what the lumps were and Mr. Jerkins said NO that he believed us and would refund us. He complains that the vet papers did not describe the buck, well he could have just CALLED the vet, as we provided her office number and email address.
He also SAYS the test isn't accurate, but when the goat shows the symptoms AND tests positive, i think it's pretty accurate. It's only inaccurate if the goat has been vaccinated for it before, but then it shouldn't be showing symptoms. It's worthwhile to note that when a goat is vaccinated for CL it is only vaccinated for the particular strain of CL that they created the vaccine from, not ALL strains of CL. So even if a goat gets a vaccine, they can STILL get CL. Therefore, in our opinion it is not worth it to vaccinate for CL because it skews test results - in the future we will blood test all our goats bianually and any new additions BEFORE they come here and strictly separate for one whole month.
The case is closed as to where the disease came from- the small female we bought also had abscesses and none of our original goats showed the symptoms nor tested positive. We suspect that he had other goats showing signs too, how could they not? If we were really extorting money from the man, wouldn't we try to charge him more than just our purchase price? He says there are no refunds at auctions, which is why we didn't want to buy at an auction, but from a REPUTABLE honest breeder of healthy goats, which we mistook him for. There are many REPUTABLE goat breeders who do NOT have herds with CL or Johnes or CAE or any of those. They are common diseases, but they are NOT "everywhere", especially if you follow the right practices AND if you do the right thing and PUT DOWN those that have the disease, rather than pass them on to others.
We waited a VERY long time to try to work things out - we didn't even try to press for vet fees or anything because we figured he didn't have it- we just wanted our money back. We are NOT convinced that he is innocent at all, but are glad that he finally mustered the decency to at least refund us the purchase price of the buck and will never buy or sell goats with this man again, and warn everyone we meet to learn from our mistakes when buying goats in our region.
Spunky is now dead, and whatever the case, in the end Mr. Jerkins did indeed make good on his promise, albeit after several months and a lot of angry bluster.
mark
Pleasanton,Texas,
United States of America
pray for them
#5REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, February 25, 2013
recently i was contacted by someone wanting money to remove my name off of this list or i wouldn,t even know about it the people who filed the report need your prayers they are godless and evil they say many untrue things about me that my god knows the truth and the people who know me would never believe I have always been taught not to say anything about someone unless its good but i am forced to respond to this attack.
I do sell goats and chickens and i did sell them 2 goats and one did die from worms the story is i done some repairs on a home and the people couldn't pay so i traded for some goats I kept some and sold some to get my money back my animals are well taken care of but these were not cared for as well I told these people to worm these animals as soon as they got them they did not do this as far as the C.L i did not know about this disease until i looked it up after they called me this was 2 months after they bought the goat and after the little goat had died and i had given there money back if you buy animals at an auction there is no going back but i felt i done what was right at the time
I never seen anything wrong with the bigger goat iwas sent a vague vet bill on a goat that tested pos for C.L but it didn't say brown and white goat or a purple goat so there was never proof sent to me IT was also never proven the goat didn't contract the disease at ther place he was there a good while before they called me. I spoke with my vet about this and examined all of my other animals with no sign of any bumps or knots
my vet said this disease is everywhere the test is not 100% accurate and you can only watch and cull the sick goats as you find them in your herd i never have had anything like this before and don't know if i do now I gave the money back for the second goat only to stop the constant harassment and put an end to this but i was attacked with this add right after they received the money order i sent them for the second goat this is all i will say about this you make your own judgement the people who know me well know the truth without asking thank you and god bless.