"No farmer should ever raise animals that are smarter than they are. That rules out Border Collies, goats, pigs and horses for most people" -Willard Fox
I got a call this morning. A Southern Belle's goats had gotten out.
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| This is what I saw when I arrived at 6:54am |
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| I opened up a gap between two feedlot panels and bent them as shown to help funnel the animals back into the pen. |
There is no profit in chasing goats.
I went to Southern Belle's barn and got a large "book" of alfalfa hay and carried to the corner of the pen. The friendliest goat came over to check me out and smelled the alfalfa and was very interested. I walked through the funnel and she followed me in. Goats are social animals. Three of the other four followed her in.
The fifth goat is lame and is the omega in the social caste. She decided that eating weeds and dogwood leaves suited her better than fighting her sisters for alfalfa hay.
I put some corn in a plastic bucket and carried into the pen and shook it. The four in the pen knew EXACTLY what that was and were suddenly my best friends. The lame goat ignored me.
So I walk in a round-about way to get her between me and the pen. Then I slowly, very slowly, started moving toward her. That is called "putting pressure on the animal". They will usually move in the direction they are pointed if you slowly approach them from their side.
She decided that her mean sisters were a better option than my getting closer and she scooted around the corner and joined her sisters.
I had the foresight to preposition some twine to refasten the feedlot panels together. Time elapsed: 7 minutes.
Way better than chasing goats, especially with a sore knee.
After securing the gap where I had let them back in, I walked around the pen to find where they had gotten out.
One of the feedlot panels had a bottom corner that had not been secured to the fence post. I fixed that while I was there.
Then I added a half-bale of hay and the rest of the five pounds of corn I brought.
After all, Willard Fox said "The best fences have the animals, food, water and salt all on the same side of them".
I have chased goats too many times. I won't help anymore unless they have fainting goats. YMMV, but it's never zero when it comes to goat chasing.
ReplyDeleteYou can lead goats and sheep easily, very difficult to drive them. Raising them gave me a bit better understanding of a lot of scripture. Also frequently tempted me to take the name of the Lord in vain
ReplyDeleteRoger that.
DeleteSome people insist that we don't need "Church" or community if we have Jesus. That ignorantly ignores the fact that Jesus used sheep as a metaphor for humans and sheep behave differently when in groups of four or more than they behave as a solitary animal.
Humans are inherently social animals.
Someone smarter than me once postulated that the only effective way to contain goats would be to pour two concrete walls 10 ft tall and 20 ft apart, fill the void between them with water, and stock the moat with sharks and piranhas.
ReplyDeleteI had goats when I was in veterinary school and still living at home with my parents but when graduation rolled around, Dad told me, "Don, I love you, but when you leave, so do the goats." He'd had enough of them escaping to eat his flowers/shrubs and was tired of finding the buck on top of the family car.
When we started our farm we wanted to raise Angora goats because of their valuable fleeces. I drove down to Pennsylvania to help a goat farmer on shearing day, to see what they were all about. That's why we raise Finnsheep now.
ReplyDelete