Here We Goat Again
With all the synod business goin' down, it seems like every Catholic blogger out there has something to say. Rebecca's post yesterday was one of my favorites and reminded me I haven't written about the goats lately. How's that for a segue?
To catch you up on the goat happenings, we were having problems with our LaMancha, Bard. She was being a very bad goat and we had begun staking her in our yard during the day. She seemed to be doing better for a day or so, but if we weren't right next to her, she would bleat nonstop. You could hear her halfway across the neighborhood. We just tried to ignore her. After several days she began to resist coming down into our garden. She had a great little passive aggressive move she would use. She would trot just outside her pen on the leash and then plop herself on her side and refuse to budge. The girls dragged her down to our property for a couple days, but it really was obvious she no longer cared to come. Stupid goat, stay in your pen, then.
Not too long after giving up on staking her, I received a text message from the family that houses the goats in their barn. They felt Skoshi A and Special K were feeding the goats too much hay. There would be hay covering their barn floor in the morning and it really could not be salvaged. My girls assured me they were not giving the goats too much hay and were not laying it on the floor as bedding. Oftentimes they weren't feeding the goats at night at all, as they seemed to have plenty of hay already on the floor and in their bin for the night. I was convinced Bad Bard was somehow climbing the fencing and pulling hay down at night. Our neighbors were positive this could not be possible. Well, take a look at the photo I found and tell me it's not possible for a goat to get on top of a narrow fence and pull hay off a shelf. . .
To catch you up on the goat happenings, we were having problems with our LaMancha, Bard. She was being a very bad goat and we had begun staking her in our yard during the day. She seemed to be doing better for a day or so, but if we weren't right next to her, she would bleat nonstop. You could hear her halfway across the neighborhood. We just tried to ignore her. After several days she began to resist coming down into our garden. She had a great little passive aggressive move she would use. She would trot just outside her pen on the leash and then plop herself on her side and refuse to budge. The girls dragged her down to our property for a couple days, but it really was obvious she no longer cared to come. Stupid goat, stay in your pen, then.
Not too long after giving up on staking her, I received a text message from the family that houses the goats in their barn. They felt Skoshi A and Special K were feeding the goats too much hay. There would be hay covering their barn floor in the morning and it really could not be salvaged. My girls assured me they were not giving the goats too much hay and were not laying it on the floor as bedding. Oftentimes they weren't feeding the goats at night at all, as they seemed to have plenty of hay already on the floor and in their bin for the night. I was convinced Bad Bard was somehow climbing the fencing and pulling hay down at night. Our neighbors were positive this could not be possible. Well, take a look at the photo I found and tell me it's not possible for a goat to get on top of a narrow fence and pull hay off a shelf. . .
Not only was she pulling hay down in the barn, she had found a way out of her pen during the day and was once again jumping on top of the coop and over into the orchard and stripping the fruit trees bare. Enough was enough, Bad Bard had to go. Our neighbors listed her online and sold her before the week was out. I believe they received $15 more than we had paid for her originally. I'm sure $15 isn't even close to the cost of the damage she wreaked, but we all breathed a sigh of relief to have her off our hands. As cute, funny, and smart as she was, she was just too much trouble.
This week, our goat mentor is dropping off the stud and we all have our fingers crossed that his romantic advances are successful. Using my handy dandy goat gestation calculator, we should have kids around March 14th. I'll keep you posted.
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