There is an expression in goat keeping
that says “If a fence won’t hold water, it won’t hold a goat.” It is one of those truisms that we live
by. We are often amazed at where our
goats end up in spite of our best attempts at fencing.
Vincent Van Goat is one of our worst
offenders when it comes to wandering the farm.
Vincent came to us from Split Creek Dairy as the offspring of a Nigerian
Dwarf father and a LaMancha mother. The
children worked at the dairy to earn him.
He was still being bottle fed when we brought him home so he spent a lot
of time following us around. One of the
most interesting characteristics of the LaMancha is the tiny or almost absent
outer ears. It was that characteristic
that made it so easy to name him. Vincent
is a beautiful white fellow with gray markings.
He has white speckles across his gray nose. He is one of our largest goats,
weighing nearly a hundred fifteen pounds.
He is a big fellow but inherited his mother’s tiny ears so that is why
we named him as we did. He is also one
of our oldest goats at easily over ten years old but you would never know it
based on his behavior.
Vincent feels a need to be in the middle
of everything going on here. He was
wethered (neutered) as a young kid but still thinks he is quite the buck. He feels a need to supervise all the other
goats here and easily travels from pasture to pasture to do that. He leaps a fence like a deer, clearing it
with ease. He loves to rub his head all
over anyone who will stand still for a moment as a way of marking them as one
of his special possessions. He is a big
fellow and loves to rub at the worst of times like when I am bent over trying
to trim another goat’s hooves. More than
once Vincent has put me on the ground.
There is much written about goats and
proper diet but Vincent has never read any of it. His favorite treat is dry dog food. When we feed the livestock guardian dogs we
pull them into smaller paddocks or into stalls in the stable so that they can
eat in peace. We can take their food from
them, reach into their dishes or otherwise interfere with their dinner but they
do not tolerate that from other animals. Food protectiveness is a good quality
in these dogs but we’ve had a few nipped and bloody ears on goats who tried to
put their faces in the dog dishes. The
enormous dogs give a gentle snap as a warning.
We don’t want to squelch their instinct but also don’t want injuries to
the livestock so we separate the dogs from their flocks or herds at mealtime. Vincent is the only creature here who can
find his way into any of the places that we put the dogs for a peaceful
meal. One of his favorite dogs to share
dinner with is Regina, our oldest Anatolian Shepherd. Vincent will jump the fence around the paddock
where we feed her. He will dance around
as she begins to eat until he sees an opportunity to stick his head in and
jostle her bowl. He usually manages to
shake a good handful of dog food out onto the ground. I feed the dogs a combination of dry dog food
mixed with scrambled eggs. We have such
an abundance of eggs that I cook a few dozen up for them daily. I can appreciate that Vincent would enjoy dry
dog food as it is made of grain but I am always surprised to see him bolt down
the scrambled eggs. Vincent and all of
the dogs seem to have an understanding as he travels around gleaning a mouthful
here and there with barely more than a warning growl from the dogs.
Vincent not only jumps fences but is
quite the climber. If we bring home a
trailer full of hay he will be the first to make it to the very top. He often perches on top of a round bale,
lazily surveying the pastures and other goats underneath him. He will nap up on an empty trailer. He also
loves to stand on trailers, the tractor or in the bed of the truck to reach the
highest tree branches. He especially
loves standing in the bed of the truck when it is parked near the big pear tree
at the end of summer when the lowest fruit has already fallen or been eaten
off. Vincent can always stretch up to
find just one more juicy pear. He is
also content with the leaves once the fruit is gone.
There is one time each week when Vincent
does get locked up. When Al unloads feed
he has to lock Vincent in a stall.
Vincent seems to know when Al pulls in with a truck load of fifty pound
sacks of chicken feed, all stock and dog food.
He will leap all the fences from the barnyard to the front yard and
begin sizing up the truck while it is in the driveway. Unless Vincent is locked up he will jump up
on the stack of feed bags and begin to tear them open. He will grab big mouthfuls between ripping
bags in an attempt to sample everything on the truck. On the rare occasion that Al manages to drive
the truck all the way back to the stable to unload, Vincent will trot along
next to the truck and leap up as Al slows down next to the end door to the
stable. Al and Vincent will then have a
brief wrestling match until Vincent is shoved into a stall so that Al can
unload in quiet.
Vincent’s latest interest is to join the
donkeys in the front pasture. They don’t
have anything in their pasture that Vincent couldn’t find anywhere else on the
farm but he seems to enjoy leaping the split rail fencing, daring the donkeys
to chase him and then launching himself out again. He is a spry old man but more and more I
realize that he is an old man. I catch
him napping more often than I used to.
I’ve also started to notice that he likes to spend more of each day
sitting and staring off into space. I
took a series of pictures of some of our older animals just the other day. There is a dignified look that comes with
age. Our very first goat, Jacob, began
to spend his days sitting at the very top of the pasture and staring off into
space in the final year of his life. He
reminded me of an old man ruminating over his life with barely the energy to do
anything but dream. As of now Vincent
has lots of energy. He looks like an old
goat when he rests, though, so I dread the day that he really starts to act
like one. As annoying as he can be, he
is a special part of everything we do outside.
And it makes almost no difference what type of fencing we’ve used –
nothing seems to get in Vincent’s way.
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