Herding Goats

How hard can herding two goats be? Apparently quite hard. I should have known it was going to be a challenge. One day we let them out of their pen and what did they go for? The nice green grass or the nice green leaves? No, they had to go for the pepper plants. Thankfully they only got a leaf or two before we shooed them off. It was Saturday and Shirley and I had gone to Pineridge Hollow market and TJ was busy on the home yard. He didn’t let them out because the sky looked ominous and if there was going to be a storm it would be much safer for them to be in their pen. They love being outside of their pen.

When Shirley and I got home the goats were driving us nuts with their bleating. We were trying to clean up and get organized for the next market. TJ was on the Farm Animal maze so I though how hard can it be to get them to their grazing area. First I had to unnail part of the fence. Not a hard task, unless you have two goats head butting you in their desperate attempt to get out. Finally I had an opening in the fence and both goats tried to get out at the same time. Pretty funny watching them because it wasn’t working to come out. I pushed one back in and one came out.

Goal number one keep them away from the plants. Goal number two try to get them to run in the right direction. The goats took off and the chase was on. First they went in the wrong direction, but I quickly corrected that. Than they found a nice juicy green patch of grass and refused to budge. I grabbed the dominant one and started running. Than they found a second patch of juicy grass and had to try it. I decided to concentrate on one goat (the dominant one) and maybe the other one would follow. Didn’t happen, apparently the non-dominate one got sick of being a follower. I managed to get one goat tied up. Than I had to go find the next one.

Thankfully he didn’t decide to make a beeline into the greenhouse and chomp on some tomatoes or cucumbers. Instead he found some nice leaves. I bribed him with a tree branch and attempted to lure him to his tying spot. Only problem was his tying spot had changed, but I didn't know this so I brought him to the wrong spot. I than had to attempt to get him around our little garden. Than he spotted the cherry tomatoes and made a bee line and I made a bee line for him and to rescue the cherry tomatoes. Finally I got him tied up. I was dripping in sweat and totally out of breath, but the goats were now happy.

How easy is it to herd goat? I found out not that easy. The goats are nameless at this point, but will have names come August 1. I won’t be naming them because my ideas of names are: No Name 1 and No Name 2 (these are two of the cats you may see at Penner Pumpkins) or I name them according to a characteristic: Fluffy, Blackie, or Calico. Not very original. Come on down after August 1 and see the goats that gave me a good cardio work-out that Saturday.