The MU Veterinary and Teaching Hospital celebrated after successfully saving the life of a critically ill foal. It took a horse, a goat, and an S-U-V transport to carry out a slightly unethical life saving treatment.

Putting a goat in the same pen with a foal might run afoul of the barnyard playbook, but Susan Barker had to call an audible.

"Josie" the goat and "Chaos" the horse are inseparable for a reason.

"I went out and found a foal in my pasture," the horse's owner, Susan, said. "It was unexpected; I didn't know my mare was pregnant."

The newborn foal, Chaos, suffered from dehydration, and his mother couldn't produce milk. He also had a deadly blood infection.

"The prognosis at the time which was not very good," MU veterinary student Laura Braun said.

Susan's daughter Courtney Barker said the horse had about a five percent chance of survival. With such low hopes, the owner and the students turned to any option with a chance. Unexpectedly, they learned that survival depended on, of all things, a goat.

Josie does not just keep Chaos company; she also serves as his meal ticket.

Since nursing from a goat looks odd to all including the foal, it was important to find a good match.

"We have had dairy goats come in before to do this job, and we had a dairy goat that was available," Braun said.

Still, when they discovered Josie, they knew they had found the right match for the job.

"She said we have one with a real good temperament and I said yeah, probably have to be to have a horse nurse from her," Barker said after Josie's discovery.

The Barker's took their car to pick up the new "nurse" for Chaos, and made the whole situation even more eccentric.

"We purchased Josie and put her in the back of the SUV," Susan said.

"She would stand up the whole time and stick her head out the window and look at everyone. Half the people would just laugh at it," Courtney said.

"We drove down I-70 with this goat trying to get it to the hospital to try to get our horse to nurse from it, we hoped. People looked at us with this goat in the back of our car. I told her it's Missouri you know!" Susan said.

After Josie's exciting transport to the hospital ended in success, the true challenge came to light: "How do you teach a horse to nurse from a goat?"

Chaos showed a spark of brilliance and learned to herd Josie to a platform so he could reach her.

"It was incredible. I wasn't sure he would figure it out, but it only took a day for him to figure out in the hospital what he was supposed to do," Braun said.

The dairy goat feeds her "big" kid several times a day. Some even ask whether the goat realizes her she has a horse for a baby. Regardless of the answer, the little goat saved the big horse's life.

"She's like twice her size at least in pounds," Susan said, "We've had people stop and get out of their car. The neighbors' kids come down here and say that's not right. That's not a goat and ask lots of questions, so yeah, it is kind of odd."

Thanks to the MU vet hospital, Josie and Chaos formed a "la leche league" of their own.

Josie first nursed the foal on Mother's Day, and Chaos will free feed in about five weeks.

The goat had already weaned her own kids before taking on the foal.

Edited by: Eden Slater