Filed under: Wide open spaces
No, the title has nothing at all to do with our little *ahem* project. I just wanted to respond to Shirky’s request for some livestock tales.
So the wannabe farmers had an adventure recently.
We had taken care of a friend’s farm last winter for two weeks, surviving two snow storms, a snow plow that couldn’t go more than two feet without getting stuck on the sheet of ice, power outages, and the hour-plus drive to and from work each day. We loved it–and said that we were willing to do it again. I guess when you say that you are opening yourself up to being asked again.
Our friend has been dreaming of a trip to Scotland for several years. Now with a budding rekindled romance and two capable farmhands, this was looking like a wonderful possibility. Certainly wanting to facilitate love and acquire more farming experience, we agreed to care for the farm and the goats for three weeks. No B&B guests were scheduled and no snowstorms were predicted for Labor Day weekend. What could go wrong?
We took a few things into consideration:
- Through the wonders of reproduction, there were twice as many goats on the farm in late summer as there were in late winter.
- Kids are more likely to get into mischief than older goats.
- The goats would need to be moved twice a day in the Management Intensive Grazing system.
- Mowing the lawn with a riding mower is much, much easier that dealing with the aforementioned snowplow on a pickup with accelerator issues.
So the first week was a smooth and predictable. It was exhausting to get up (at a farmer’s hour!), do chores, get ready for work, drive into the city, work a regular day, drive back to the farm, do chores, have a late dinner, and go to bed. Repeat again the next day, and again, and again. We very quickly realized something we had overlooked: the last time that we had farmsat, we weren’t on our own. There was another friend who would come and take care of the morning chores most weekday mornings–except when there was a conflict with one of her three jobs. No, we weren’t exactly on our own this time. We had the combined efforts of Team Goat working with us. The other team members would occasionally stop by the farm and let the goats out to pasture at about 11:00 on weekdays and were available if anything went wrong (the Hay Boy story can wait for another post), but otherwise were in charge of the whole lot.
Refer back to #2 and you probably have a sense of where I am going with this.
The Friday before Labor Day we arrived back at the farm at a little after 6:00. As soon as we got out of the car, we knew that something was wrong: there was the horrible sound of a screaming goat coming from the barn. We ran to the front porch, threw on our barn shoes, put the dog on the tie-out, and ran across the barnyard. Since we couldn’t decipher exactly where the sound was coming from, I headed for the front door and my DP went around to the pens in the back.
We had to pause at first when we found the source of the noise: one of the kids was in a space created by the back wall of the barn, three 5ft. cattle panels, and the automatic waterer. He had apparently jumped or climbed the panel, gotten scared, and stuck his head through the panel grid, hoping to escape. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but he had not been dehorned and had a set of 3in. horns. Being a new owner of horns, he wasn’t familiar with their location, use, and management. He had put his head through a small lower grid and his horns prevented him from pulling back out.
The uninitiated might think that the other goats (especially his mother) would gather around to offer him comfort in his distress. Nope. The other goats had gathered around him, but were essentially mocking him and occasionally butting his immovable head.
My DP knelt to check out the tight fit in the grid panel and just how we might remove the kid’s head. Seeing an opportunity for more fun, the other kids started jumping on her back. Much yelling and wild swinging of arms was necessary to chase off the kids, but left the stuck kid unattended and there was more head butting.
I grabbed the ladder and climbed into the small space with the kid. I held the kids body, DP turned his head, and I pulled the ears through one at a time. Much more goat screaming resulted. I pulled his body and DP pushed his head and, pop!, he was free. He ran in a small circle for a minute, still screaming. I thought that I would just pick him up and pass him over the cattle panel to DP. No. He quickly wedged his 30lb. body in the 4in. space between the automatic waterer and a cattle panel. I believe that we paused for a moment here to question the mental capacities of this kid.
After shaking my head, I tried to pull the kid in reverse with my hands clasped around his neck while DP came around from pen to the walkway that the kid was now facing. I took a few more pulls and loosened enough space for him to rear up, throw his head back, and catch me with a horn. Yikes! It felt like he had gored my eye! I bent over, covering my eye with my hands, cursing the goat. DP was just coming down the walkway and hadn’t seen exactly what had happened, but knew it was bad. When I looked at my hand there was a mixture of tears and blood, but no eye. DP said it didn’t look good, but that everything was intact–the horn had caught me about 1/4 of an inch below my left eye. She thought that we should take a break for some medical care. I was now angry and in pain and wanted to finish with this.
After rearing back, the kid had been freed. My yelling had frightened the goat, who ran around in circles before wedging himself in the 5in. space on the other side of the waterer. Not wanting to repeat the goring, we knew that we needed another tactic. DP got bolt cutters and clipped the connectors on the short panel in front of the kid. She pulled back one side of the panel and I pushed and he was freed.
But wait.
He ran down the walkway and turned to the gate that led into the north pen. The gate was closed. He stuck his head through the wire grid and couldn’t get it out. The goat screaming started again.
DP followed the walkway back down to the gate and I climbed up the cattle panel and down the ladder and went around from the south pen to the north side. There is a drop between the walkway and the gate, a space that is exactly the length of a 30lb. kid’s body. The kid was stuck even worse this time. We repeated the earlier maneuver, with me on the head side and DP lifting and pulling his body. There was less gentleness this time.
When he was free, I opened the gate and let him into the pen. He ran for his mother, but she shooed him away, attempting to dissociate from him.
I went back up to the house tend to my eye and DP finished the chores. I was laying in the hammock with a bag of frozen peas on my face when our friend R arrived. We were planning to attend the small town high school football game that night. She took one look at me and asked “What happened?” I told her the story while we walked out to the barn. R is the key member of Team Goat and has a wealth of farming knowledge. She checked out the kid, by now named Stupid Goat or Idiot Boy, and pronounced his neck swollen but fine.
So I went to the football game with my black eye and a cut underneath. They won. They never win.
We were doing chores the next morning when R stopped by after her dairy milking job to bring DP some bacon from her farm (she really loves bacon) and check on me and Stupid Goat. My eye still hurt to blink, but I was fine. Wouldn’t you know it, Stupid Goat got his head stuck again five minutes after R arrived.
A week later, we were walking down to the barn to do the morning chores and heard some distressed bleating. By now we were experienced farmhands and didn’t get too excited. Yes, of course it was the Idiot Goat. His mother must have been eating at the hay feeder the evening before, and, because he is greedy and stupid, he stuck his head into the same grid space as her. Both of them were stuck until the next morning when we freed them.
So, even though this is a meat goat farm and the boys do not get names unless they are to become breeding stock, this one has several names–but please, don’t let this one breed.
