Dancing with goats.

I’m really not sure where the saying ‘Silly old goat’ came from, be assured goats are very intelligent.  Silly old humans would be more aptly applied to us when trying to use our wits against the goats when attempting to wrangle them in the old holding and handling yards.

Goats are masters of evasion, helped by eyes that can see 340 degrees around them and with the advantage of 4 legs easily out running our arthritic knees. Yells between hubby and I of “Go left, no right, Run! Run! Round the back, get behind them; cut off Psycho Bitch before she takes off”, are generally the order of business just to get them into the pens from the holding yard.

Our old German Short Haired Pointer was absolutely useless as a herder, she believed it was all a game of divide and scatter to the yard’s farthest corners.

It doesn’t help that goats have a fantastic memory; they remember the last time they went into the yards when I either stuck a thermometer up their bum or squirted a nasty tasting liquid down their throat; it could have been worse and been the other way around!

After about 30 minutes of goat anarchy, we usually manage to get about half the herd into the pens; these are usually the pets and quieter ones. 

Psycho Bitch and Crazy pants have avoided capture and taken the scattiest of the herd with them.

The actual handling yards are designed for cattle. Being over 60 years old they are in an extremely dilapidated condition, the timber is rotten and precariously held together with bits of wire.  The yards have done the job but they are not at all suited for goats. It would be very difficult if not downright impossible for me to do goat husbandry in them on my own.

The pens are the wrong shape and size for naturally pushing the goats into the race. The goats do an avoidance dance around the pen while hubby and I perform our version of a Maori Haka. We puff out our chests, bend our knees, arms are outstretched and madly waving up and down while clutching our weapon of choice - our hats, and stomp in a bent over position behind the goats while making weird guttural noises to send them into the race. Doing this we can normally get a least 4 or 5 goats in there at once, but not enough to stop those ones doing a tango up and down the wide long race.  

The pet goats stand in front of the entrance to the race with their heads cocked to one side looking at us like we really are stark raving mad, but still stand their ground, refusing to enter it. A bit of a forceful push on their rump helps.   

Life would be so much easier if the goats in the race  would happily trot down to the cattle crush, but no.  The next step is to grab a goat by the horns. Horns are wonderful handles but goats hate to be held by the horns and forget getting them to come quietly along with you, oh no, the description ‘stubborn goat’ really comes into play. They lock their four legs and push their heads down and it becomes a game of tug-o-war into the crush.

The crush just acts as a big cage, where hubby holds the goat by the horns while I do whatever is necessary.

Needless to say, working with goats in these yards is hard work with husbandry jobs taking twice as long to do.

Over the years we have tried to modify the yards with sheets of aluminium packaging and they have been patched with sheep paneling until the beginning of last year when my husband pulled half the pens down on the other side of the cattle crush with the intention of transforming them into something more suitable for the goats but other jobs took priority over the yards, at least in a man’s opinion, and were left!!

So last time we danced with goats was the final straw for my patience. This crazy city goat woman totally lost her cool...... The yards are back at the top of the priority list. 

Does mumma need a gun? Stock euthanasia.

Where to begin? I am anti gun. I hate guns. To me a gun represents violence. I applaud Australia’s strict gun laws. As a city girl I can’t think of a possible reason outside of sport anyone would need one in the city sprawl.  Hunting is no longer a subsistence requirement among the skyscrapers and urban landscape. I am quite sure the local suburban parks now have wild children not wild game running about them. City hunting and gathering is done at a supermarket. 

I am so anti gun I would not allow my son to have a toy gun when he was little. 

I am so anti gun when my daughter came home from school at the age of five singing “50 bullets in your head, bang, bang, you’re dead” I was horrified and marched up to the school demanding to know why such a disgusting song was part of my child’s learning. I was so angry I was shaking.

I do think I had every right to be outraged about this because only two weeks prior to my daughter coming home singing this song a gunman had shot and killed 16 children and injured 13 other children in a class of five and six year olds at Dunblane School in Scotland.  My protest to the teacher fell on deaf ears. The teacher described it as a “fun action song”.

I explained to my daughter I would prefer she did not sing it and my reason why.  Bless her heart when the class continued to sing ’50 bullets’ she refused to join in.

And then we go and buy a farm and stock it with animals.......

Most farmers own guns as a necessity to dispatching vermin or as a humane way to euthanise stock, which is an enormous responsibility, deserving of being done right with utmost respect for the animal.  So, apparently we suddenly had a genuine reason to apply for a gun licence, and to own a smooth wood and cold steel weapon.....well husband did, I sure wasn’t having a thing to do with it. 

To my dismay my son also applied for his junior gun licence.

It always seems when I am at the farm by myself I have need of a goat to be euthanised and have to call on a neighbour to do the deed.  I feel really bad I have given someone else this sad task, but also thankful I am not the one to have to do it and usually hide so I don’t have to face the action of it. 

It is easy to settle with a natural death and to deal with the body of my herd goat, but I’m still having trouble deciding to take a life away, even if it is to stop suffering.

Farmers think differently to city dwellers. They have a matter of fact attitude to the life and death of stock.  

The last time I had to ask my neighbour to put down a goat because she had septicaemia after retaining two dead kids and was slowly dying, I decided I had to toughen up and be with him as he shot her. How could I expect my soft hearted husband or my neighbour to do this without understanding and experiencing the process myself? 

I was warned what to expect. It was confronting. There was the most vivid thick red blood.  Yes it was quick; I am told death is instant despite nerves making the animal twitch. The action was still violent compared to a vet giving the 'green dream' (an over dose of anesthetic)  where the animal gently fades away, but the green dream is not an economical solution when it comes to stock.  

Today I look at my husband with compassion as I have to send him off to put down “Numberoneson”, a dear old favourite male goat in the herd, who can’t get up and won’t make it through another day without undue misery.  

My husband is a gentle natured man; this is only the second time he has had to euthanise one of my goats. He has become extremely quiet, probably contemplating what he has to do but does not want to do. I ask my husband if he wants me to go with him, he hesitates but says “no”. The coward in me is relieved. I sit in the house shedding a tear for both Numberoneson and my husband as I hear the shot ring out.

Will I get my gun licence specifically for euthanasia for my goats? I won't say never, but for the moment I have searched my soul, I don’t believe I am strong enough emotionally.  I know I would be a sobbing mess and not be able to pull the trigger, or close my eyes at ‘that instant’ causing excessive suffering to the animal.  I am glad I witnessed the putting down of my doe by a competent man and feel somewhat comfortable knowing an animal will not suffer providing the shot is done properly. I have the highest respect for anyone who has to do this. 

I was normal three goats ago

I saw a T-shirt on Pinterest with the slogan, ‘I was normal three goats ago’.  I have never seen anything so apt for myself.  It is no secret I shamelessly love my goats. My hubby begs me not tell people that. He reckons it makes me look loopy; too bad, it is far too late to save my reputation, everyone has already formed that opinion of me. 

This love didn’t happen straight away. Goats are just goats, right? A herd animal that hangs out in the paddock. My son describes them as meat walking on legs. I tried to think of them that way until after we picked up our first 20 pregnant goats.  I then observed how intelligent, social and trusting they were and how each had such a distinct personality.  I found myself secretly naming some of them. Black Betty was bossy and brash, Woolly because of her long coat, Cleopatra walked like an Egyptian, Muriel...well she looked like a Muriel! 

I was told from the beginning not to name my herd goats, certainly not the males, who on anyone else’s property would have a short destiny.  A name forms an attachment.  Well, I am sorry, it doesn’t matter if my horned ones have a name or a herd number I still become emotionally connected with them. They all have their unique personalities which I know like the back of my hand.

My boys with no names - ha!  Number 1 Son, Big Boy, Cheeky, Diesel, et al.

Traits are passed on to their kids, I will be doing husbandry on a goat and comment to him or her (yes I talk to my goats too) how their hooves or personality is just like their mum’s or even their grandmother’s.  My hubby looks at me strangely asking how I could possibly know who their mother is from our large herd. I look oddly back at him and state ‘how could I not know!’, then reel off mum’s herd number. Sure enough when he checks the back of the ear tag for their mother’s number I am always correct. 

The true passion for my goats began with the fist kidding on our property when I hand raised three kids. I was now to discover not only could a goat be intelligent, trusting, packed with personality, curious, at times infuriating and strong willed but also how loving they can be.

Coffee, Victor and Rose were all born the same day.  Coffee and Victor’s mother birthed quads. She had decided she could not raise four babies so she was tossing the smallest two through the air trying to kill them. 

The gentleman we bought the does from had advised me not to interfere with the whole kidding process.  I watched doe '# 3' trying to rid herself of these two and thought "Surely he doesn’t mean for me to simply allow her to kill them?" Coffee was the runt but oh so determined.  Each time he was tossed away he went back to her trying to get milk.  So I marched in there and rescued them. Stuff not interfering! 

Another doe had also given birth to two kids not far from this scene of potential murder. I observed she was not bonding with one of the kids. Rose was curled up under a bush, not cleaned up after birth, totally abandoned by her mother. No matter how many times I took her over to her mother the mum would move her other baby away leaving Rose alone. 

Rosie not long after birth

Rose is sometimes in a world of her own.  I believe Rose was mis-mothered because she had a tough birth, lacking oxygen for a short time and did not move straight after being born. A goat mother will perceive this as something seriously wrong with the kid, abandoning it for the stronger of her babies. 

I rang my husband to tell him we had three new additions to the family.  The old cubby house in our suburban backyard had a temporary fence erected around it and saw renewed life as their weekday manor house.

Then eight weeks later Otis joined the lucky ones.

Yes I was normal three goats (+1) ago.