Goat recovery horses
Posted by Bill on Mar 22 2007 at 04:26 pm | Tagged as: General
Who knew you could uses horses when trying to recover escaped goats? I may have mentioned this but in addition to two horses, we also have two goats. We have an old male named Joey and a young female named Hanna. It’s in the upper 70’s and low 80’s this week so I thought I’d let Joey out to chomp on some grass. We put him on a long dog leash attached to an “anchor” hammered deep into the lawn. This gets him out for some fresh air and recreation and since he eats lots of grass, it keeps that section neatly trimmed. In fact, there is a visible circle in the lawn where everything inside the circle is neatly trimmed and everything outside needs mowing. We have three of these anchors so we can move the goats around or put both out at the same time. I didn’t really have time (caution…irony approaching) to put Hanna, our smaller girl goat, outside so I brought her a handful of hay. As I was putting it down in their pen, the little bugger bolted out of the partially opened gate and ran around the yard. Great. To make matters worse, Hanna is afraid of me, for some completely unknown reason. I’m as gentle as can be with her but she runs from me and runs TO Mikki. So I first try gently walking up to her, speaking softly. Doesn’t work. I grabbed some hay for bait. Doesn’t work. I try and slowly sneak up on her. No deal…I get within 6 feet and she bolts. Uggg. Then, mad, I chase after her. She’s too fast and nimble for me. Stupid fast goat. Oh, and as she runs around she’s bleating in a way that sounds remarkably like a woman screaming for her life. I swear the police are going to show up one day.
Our horses actually helped. A few times Hanna evaded me by ducking under the fence and heading for the pasture. I had to stop to open the gate and this slowed me down. The horses chewed mouthfuls of hay while watching me running around the pasture. They seemed amused. I imagine all the farm animals talking when we’re not around, like like in the movie Babe. Oh, the laughs they probably had over this race. I convinced Hanna to head back to the lawn and the horses seemed to help me corral her. I’m not sure I could have done it without them, actually. Unwitting help, I suspect. But it was appreciated just the same. I eventually did capture her; she fell for the old “food dish in the cage” routine.
So if you have goats and they get out, maybe your horse(s) will help in the recovery effort!
Now you just need some cows, then you’ll see what those horses can really do!
I don’t know about goats, but our horses have very strong opinions about moose. Once, a young moose and mother moose were walking down the road next to our pasture. The young moose jumped over the fence and found himself in the pasture with our 5 horses. The horses would have none of that. They literally formed a line and galloped right toward the poor little moose, who realized he had better get back over to the road side of the fence in a hurry.
Are your horses quarter horses? Maybe they are “cowy”. I’ve got three goats and we have our share of escapes,but I’m lucky, I also have a border collie who knows how to herd but even when that fails, those goats will always follow a scoop of grain.
Valentine, the big one, is a Tennessee Walking Horse and Moonshine, our mare, is a Paint, but also part quarter horse and thoroughbred.
Pony Tail Club, neat story! I chuckled when reading that.
Laura, we though about getting cows but I just can’t eat something I’ve given a name to.