Itty Bitty Hooves

Peace Between Goats and Fence Shortlived

July 25, 2007 on 12:40 pm | In goats, life |

It was just yesterday I was saying how wonderfully peaceful it has been without escapes, and stuck goats for the past few days. Wouldn’t you know it, it seems like I put the hex on my screnity. This morning Blondie was once again stuck in the fence bawling for me to come rescue her.

Now goats are well-known for their tendancy to put any fence to the test, and mine are certainly no exception, but it is Blondie who just can’t seem to get the idea clear in her mind that horns and small openings do not mix.

When I hear a goat bawling over being stuck I can almost to perfection name the goat–Blondie.

So it was this morning. The kind of cool thing about this morning is I got to test a theory I came up with awhile ago. Our buck Mickey is in with his herd of ladies of which Blondie is one, now. He’s a happy camper, but even though he’s not overtly aggressive he is pushy, and he does have one massively impressive set of horns that hook in an incredibly effective way that seems to always get you right behind the leg when he rubs up against you which is really all he wants to do.

He’s not mean, but his horns, and his weight make him dangerous to be around.

I’ve thought and thought about how to keep him from coming up on me and a few months ago I discovered that he, like most goats, hates water. More precisely, when I was filling a water tank in the goat pens and he came up, I sprayed some water in the direction of his face and he backed off.

Hum… I thought. Really cool but rather limiting. It’s only going to be effective so long as I’m within reach of the hose. That doesn’t help much when walking across the pasture.

The next time I went to WalMart I picked up a package of water guns. The little toy guns kids play with. I hoped that the spray from the gun would be a deterent for Mickey, but wasn’t really convinced on their effectiveness. We’re talking the difference between a full-force spray from a water hose, and a teeny little stream of water from a water pistol.

This morning armed with my little water gun I stepped into the field and began to make my way across to where Blondie was held captive by the nasty old fence, and sure enough, here came Mickey trotting through the grass towards me.

I aimed the gun when he was a few feet away and squirted him right between the eyes. He stopped and stood there while I continued to spray him and I started to think that this was a serious miscalculation. The spray was so thin and weak that it didn’t seem to have a real effect other than giving him cause to contemplate and wonder what I was doing.

… then…

he backed away.

Whew. Several times he came back over as I worked to free my stupid goat from the fence. Each time I stopped what I was doing and resumed my gunslinger stance playing target practice with a 350 pound goat.

Each time he gave up and walked away to mess with his girls.

I have found my solution. I don’t kid myself into thinking the water gun will be all the effective against him if I were carrying something REALLY interesting like… food. But just to walk around the pasture without worrying about being knocked over, or stuck with horns… it is terrific.