I knew something was up the moment I was met in the back yard by Justice emerging from the creek bed. We have now had goats for approximately 6 months. We have gotten better at herding, learned how to give goat shots, learned more than we would like to know about foot rot, have the vet on speed dial, and have become reasonable fence runners. In the whole 6 months, they have never escaped. Until now!!!
Actually they escaped the back fence the other day because it had been bent over by a tree, but they didn’t wander very far. At least they seem to like us – or what we feed them.
This time, Justice heads up the creek bank into the back yard and Charlie is coming up to greet us. Great! Honestly, at least it was “the big ones”. They are never herded anyway, at this point, they are led. We say sweet things to them and kiss, and they follow. Mostly because they think we will give them some food, but hey I’ll take it!
So we went to figure out how they got out and were met with this sad sight. Poor Ruby, she was just laying there in the grass, eating grass in one spot because she could not go anywhere! At least I didn’t have power to the fence yet. I didn’t need it over the last few days. They enjoyed the landscape and weeds and bushes so much, they didn’t even look at the fence. Hahahaha! So much for that!
It took me and Jim working together for several long minutes to free her horns from the netting. She was patient and calm – thank God! We had a few nosy friends (Justice and Charlie) who thought we needed help. thanks guys – no thanks!
Her horns were so enmeshed and tangled that I wasn’t sure we weren’t going to have to cut the mess of fence off. Thankfully, we saved ourselves from messing up expensive fence and worked with that tedious ball of net and wire long enough to get her free.
By the time we got her undone, two things were clear. She must have finally stopped thrashing about and calmed down, but not before she put up some heck of a fight with the fence. Four bent fence posts and 25 layers of tangled mesh later – she is free and happy.
There is probably some life lesson there – If you get it trouble, it doesn’t really help to thrash about and make it worse. You shouldn’t go challenging the fence and then get mad about it – because you might just get stuck in one place for a while. And, as the farmer – maybe the fence needs electric or don’t let them out in new fence when you aren’t home. Not sure what life lesson I am gleaning here, but many are coming to mind. Can’t really separate life lessons from farming.
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