I was reading a very good article the other day. The article spelled out some of the great things about chickens, how to expand your garden season. It’s just the kind of thing to be devoured when learning to farm from “scratch”. The most interesting and informative thing out of the whole article wasn’t the sage advice on feeding schedules or coop building ideas. It was the statement that no amount of reading and planning and buying actually prepares you for farm life. You can’t really be a farmer until you just do it. It is different in the real world. I have found that to be true. Somethings just don’t come out of a book.
So, I am starting to feel a bit sorry for our goats. Nor really sorry, because God knows that we spoil them. But, they are the guinea pigs. We are sometimes clueless and sometimes just fumbly.
We “caught” them the other day and attached them to 20′ tie out cables. See, in my mind, this would have gone much differently! They love goat treats. Leading with goat treats seemed like a plausible plan. Hahhahaha! We were taking them out of the little barnyard to eat better grass and the brush they seem to love. But, I’m pretty sure we would lose them if we just turned them out on the big farm. And, I am fairly sure they would become someone’s dinner if they climbed up on the top of the van. So, we wanted to tie them to a tree for just a couple of hours and see how that went.
I can tell you – there was NOT enough time to get the camera ready! Goats, as it happens, enjoy leashes about as much as cats enjoy a soak in the tub. They carried on for a little bit, but then finally seemed to settle down. So, we took a deep breath and opened the gate. We figured, if they were exploring new territory, we would just follow them a bit until they seemed to find a place they liked. Even that didn’t go so badly. We found a tree to connect them to and then took a walk around the acres. (Still one of my favorite farm activities)
After a couple of hours, we decided that it was time to return them to the barnyard. It might have had something to do with them being tangled up a bit, or that we were just tired of worrying about them. So, we headed to bring them back in. Farmer man was faster out the door than me and thought he’d just go ahead and start. Bad idea! These goat girls are nearly co-joined! Moving one without the other is a recipe for disaster. So after some pulling and tugging and some lunging, Jim decided to just carry Charlie back to the barnyard. Big job, but he did get it done. Sometimes, they do better being carried. But that left Ruby on the hill. So the normally quiet goats began calling out to each other kind of desperately. It was pretty dramatic, like grounding teenagers from electronics.
Finally, I met him at the top of the little hill – what were we thinking? He was in the process of trying to carry Ruby, which just proved to be too much. So, he put her down. With all the crying, you would have thought – easy, she will head straight to Charlie – nope! She refused to budge.
We learned a couple of things that no one thinks to write in the books. Some combination of leading with food and herding from the flank will make a stubborn goat move. The amount of time it takes for the situation to go from you trying to lead the stubborn goat to the goat pulling you down the hill as fast as your legs will go – pretty tiny! Oh, for want of a camera to be able to share that beautiful sight of Farmer man being “led” down the hill with haste! But, the other thing we learned is that trust grows. The goat girls pouted off in the corner of the barnyard for a few minutes, but were soon their nosy normal selves checking out what farmer man was doing in the barn. They are forgiving, thank God!
Big lesson, never move two goats with one person. One leader, one or two herders. Noted. We laughed and laughed. We can pick these guys up in a pinch. I told farmer man, we better figure out how to do it without picking them up. For one, they are getting bigger and harder for farmer man to carry. For another, we are working our way up to a couple of cows. Don’t see us carrying them back and forth.
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