^ Arsehole.

George is a goat. We got him a couple of years back off gumtree, someone selling a goat for fifty bucks. We had more grass than we knew what to do with and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a fancy lawnmower for a place we were renting so we got a goat. The ad said he was too difficult for the current family to handle so they were getting rid of him for cheap. The ad said he was castrated or ‘wethered’ as you’re supposed to say with goats.

Since getting a goat I’ve learned at lot of things about them, and how much of a fucking idiot I was for getting a single goat to eat grass.
Goats will eat grass but they don’t like to crop it like a horse or a sheep.  They really prefer to wander around eating bits off weeds, bushes and trees. You shouldn’t have a goat by itself because they’re herd animals and need friends to fight with to be happy.

Goats: They really like to fight with their friends.

He was relatively docile when we picked him up, a little unruly but we coaxed him into the back of the car. Not knowing goats we didn’t realise that the poor bugger having the runs and being a bit skinny was a sign he was very unhealthy. All we knew was he sat quietly in the back of the station wagon and there was a lot of poop to clean up.

A goat is a ruminant and is dependent on the bacteria in its gut to digest food. It can’t digest without this bacteria. A healthy goat will have a big barrel tummy and farts constantly.

A goat without the bacteria will be able to eat but nothing will digest and it’s usually fatal without vet treatment. We didn’t know that at the time. We just set him out in the paddock and he came good from eating all the weeds.

Now he’s a big strong boy and there’s no way he’d sit quietly in a car to be driven around.

Another thing about goats is you’re not supposed to tether them.  He’s assaulted a few people and we’d prefer to have him happy and on a chain instead of not having him. We had him behind an electric fence for a while but he kept getting free, destroying garden plants and trying to play with any humans he came across.

This morning I came out and he’d managed to tangle his chain in a way that meant I’d either have to convince a ninety kilo goat to kindly please step through these loops he’d made, or unlock the chain while he was distracted and quickly unknot everything.

A resting arsehole.

To get him free this morning I loaded up his feed bucket with pellets and plonked it at the limit of where he could get to, to give myself as much time and room as I could get. He was happy about that. George is happiest when he’s got his nose in his feed bucket. He’s second happiest when he’s bouncing around on his back hooves threatening us with his horns.

I undid the padlock, threw it in my pocket and got to untangling the chain. It didn’t take long but it doesn’t take long for him to eat his breakfast either. Goats only really exist to eat and fight. I went to grab the padlock but it had fallen through my pocket into the lining of my shorts. It wouldn’t come out, stuck on some fabric in there. 

George finished his food. He threw his head up, looked at me and I backed up a little unsure of what was going to happen. He headbutted me a few days ago because I got too close to a bush he was eating. This time he apparently had other things to think about and he ran off away from me, the chain following after him. I still had some of the slack near me so I grabbed it to stop him from getting away. 

At this point I had an unravelling chain in my hands with a running animal at the end, an animal big enough to knock me on my arse. I had no idea how to hold the chain. I didn’t want him getting loose and attacking one of my inlaws but I was afraid of the damage wrapping the chain around my hands would do to my fingers. 
I’ve already got some splits in my palms from pulling his chain a few days ago.

No one likes a cocky arsehole.

He got to about where he could feel some tension on the tether and slowed down, turned around and trotted to his water. 
His drinking gave me the time to rip my pocket open, grab the padlock and lock the chain back on the post. 

On my way out of his range he came up to me and said hello. He likes to step in front of me when he can to challenge me as head of the herd. I nudged his head and he wiggled his tail at me. Then he tried to knock me over by pushing his side against me. 

Goddamn goat.

 

 

 

Labels: advice, animals, arsehole, down on the farm, george, goat, goats are arseholes

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posted by Da at 3:49:00 PM