So, went to load the goats the other day to move them to a new spot here on Indian Island. I was grateful to be going to a new location because this one I was on proved a bit challenging. The terrain was all over the place and there were zillions of sapling trees they wanted to protect. My goat pen had to zig zag all over the place and went up and down like a roller coaster. Reason this was a problem? Well the fence netting requires tons of extra support in these situations. If I don't re enforce every nook and cranny then Ethel the unicorn goat who diligently patrols the bottom of the fence line on her knees, will find a way under.. Red the gazelle goat will then institute and aerial assault and launch an invasion force over the top of the netting. You see, the electrified netting is a great containment system for goats however it is only as good as the human that installs it. If not done perfectly then escapes can happen. In this case Ethel the unicorn worries at the bottom and can pop a post up out of the ground if the ground is soft. Once she is under the other goats are like" why does she get to be out on the other side in the tall grass, that,s not fair!" Basically a herd of 2 year old kids... I am sure you get my drift. So they send Red over as a point goat in the aerial recon force and she is like" it,s all clear" and the rest begin to either catapult themselves over or belly crawl under to get to Ethel the Unicorn and partake in the feast. Now, I swear goats have a wicked case of ADD. They don't just land in a spot of lush foliage and stay there happily gorging themselves. Nope, they have to go taste everything within a half mile radius. So if you imagine dropping a bag of marbles on a concrete floor and the marbles scattering everywhere, that is what goats do. If I am fortunate enough to be right there witnessing this event then all I can really do is scream obscenities and pull all my hair out. If I am not there to see it happen then I get to walk up and find either a feeding frenzy in progress, an empty goat pen with maybe like no goats to be found anywhere!!! Or a pile of snoring, cud chewing, brush intoxicated goats with huge bellies sleeping off their bender...right outside the goat pen.. Whichever way it pans out I usually can only find and fix the weak spot in the fence and then round them back in with Pearl and hope that the problem is fixed... So back to my story. At this site they got out a couple of times. Usually whenever I left the site to take a shower or go get groceries etc. I would come back to one of the above scenarios and I was sick and tired of it!. So, I decided to build a fortress to make sure there was no way they would be able to get out without getting a big zap by the fence. I built a pen that was akin to the fence in the movie Jurrasic Park. You know the one that kept T Rex out of the compound? I built that. It was around the livestock trailer so they had good shelter from the rain. Then I did what any good freshly showered goat wrangler does, I got in my pajamas and retired for the evening in my little R Pod trailer. I would occasionally shine my flashlight out the door to see that the compound was holding them and each time I saw 120 plus sets of glowing eyeballs looking back at me.. I went to bed and slept like a baby, with one ear open at all times to listen for them plotting an escape.. They tend to start muttering amongst themselves preceding one. Morning came and all I had heard all night was the frogs, an owl and maybe the howl of a coyote... Ok gotta get to work.. I will finish part 2 later and let you know what happens..
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February 2014
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