Goats!

“Goats! Goats, Goats, Goats!” is kind of like, “Guts! Guts, Guts, Guts!” If I remember right it was either Pippy Longstocking or Junie B. Jones who warned her classmates that she was really frustrated and was ready to let fly with some bad language when she launched into the “Guts! Guts, Guts, Guts!” More than once I’ve been really frustrated with my, Goats! Yes, goats can be extremely frustrating, and yet they are one of my favorite animals on our farm.

This past week I was reading in the gospel of Matthew and came upon the section where Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats. I’ve never kept sheep. I’ve read about sheep, but I’ve never worked closely with them. For a little over a year we’ve kept goats. Having worked with goats I’ve had to ponder Jesus’ contrast between the two in a whole new way.

This is the second go-round for goats on our property. The first time I sold them after several months simply because our fences weren’t good enough to keep them in. There’s a saying about goats and fences. It goes like this, “If you want to know if your fence will keep goats in, you take a bucket of water and throw it at your fence, if the water goes through the fence, so will the goats. Actually, the saying isn’t too far off. The first two goats I had would walk our fences looking for a way to get out. When they found a bit of an opening, and it didn’t take much (our fences were pretty old and brittle) they would squeeze through or hop over and begin browsing on whatever they could find. They didn’t take off and go great distances, they just got out. I would call them and they’d come running. I’d put them back in and they’d trot right back to the opening and squeeze through again. Often, once through, they would look back at me, as if to say, “Dude! There’s a hole in this fence! I think it’s about time you fix it! You don’t expect me to stay in if there’s a hole in this fence, do you?” My solution? I sold’em!

About year and a half ago we did some major upgrading to our fencing. I decided to try goats again. I bought 3 nannies and had them bred in December. In May we had a total of 6 kids. Five of them were nannies and 1 was a buck. What a joy to see those little kids hopping and bopping around the barnyard throughout the summer. Our girls spent hours out in the pasture holding them, petting them, and playing with them. I carry with me this mental image of Joy! It’s the sight of those little goat kids romping around out in the pasture.

A reminder, goats can still be awfully frustrating. A goat will pass up plentiful browse and pasture to stick their head through a regular woven wire fence and eat whatever they can reach outside of the fence. The problem comes when they go to pull their head out of the fence their horns catch and they’re stuck. You can help them out, only to have them go a little further down the fence and do it all over again (a single electric wire at the right height or more expensive fence solves this). Even more of a problem is what the other goats do when one has their head stuck. In an effort (I give them the benefit of the doubt) to get their fellow goat out of the fence, they will repeatedly ram into the side of their trapped compadre. Goats can be quite forceful in their efforts to free one another. I can talk to them all I want but they never seem to understand that their efforts are doing more harm than good.

I’ve had to wince on numerous occasions when witnessing how my goats will thump each other. At times it is around the feed trough or water barrel. At times it’s just to let the other goat know who’s who. There have been times when I thought the thump surely would result in a serious injury but they always seem to bounce back. Over time a hierarchy develops and the lesser ones certainly learn when it’s time to get out of the way.

I’ve seen a greater goat stand sideways in front of a feeder while eating grain to keep the lesser goats from eating. I’ve seen a greater goat push 4 other goats the whole way to the end of the feed trough and keep them there while she keeps eating. Greedy little buggers! I will often stand in between the greater goats and the least, just to keep the greater ones from hogging all the feed. It’s frustrating. I try and talk to them but they just don’t seem to get it. I think Jesus has seen the same kind of thing.

On the flip side, those crazy goats will come running from anywhere in the pasture when they see me walking. They’ll come right up to me and nuzzle me, talking the whole time. I love to watch them grazing and have them each come to me at different times for a good scratch. I love to watch them playing in one of the mulberry trees that juts out from the bank in our pasture. From very early on goats will climb up on whatever they kind find. One of our goats climbed up on top of an old mineral block and balanced there when only several hours old. They’ve climbed up on the hood of my Steiner tractor, on the bed of my pickup truck and, to the top of our large brush pile out back. Goats love to see how high up they can climb and love to play king of the hill once there.

We are scheduled to have kids again in the middle of May. I plan to keep goats around as long as we are on the farm. Every time they do something that frustrates the tar out of me I’m reminded of what God must be thinking. I may also have to get some sheep around at some point. I’m hoping I can see myself in sheep more than I can see myself in my crazy goats.