Tight Spaces

Many of us who are readily motivated by food can understand the intense reaction goats have to proffered food. I swear they lose all reason and just focus on the opportunities to eat places before them. Because of this some of our fainting goats are at risk at feeding time, the Numbers Girls especially. If the fainter gals are crowded around their dinner trough, it is not unusual to see legs pointed sideways signaling that Number Two has fainted en route to her dinner then been run over by her fellow goats. With this in mind, I should not have been surprised yesterday evening when Brad Pitt managed to wedge himself halfway into a fence opening that was far too small for him.

In the evening alpaca shuffle, the boys get returned to their stall and the girls and Spencer are freed to roam the pasture for the night. Once the boys have entered their stall in search of their evening grain, I pull the bottom half of their door closed but don’t fasten it, then quickly release the “screen door” holding back the girls and shift it over to block the boys’ door.

Last night I forgot to remove the girls’ feed tub before opening their door, so when BullyBob and Brad Pitt charged into the stall they clambered up and dove head first into the bin. The screen door got set aside while I tried to save the grain. Using the goats’ horns as handles (and with Bully’s stunted horns this is not always easy), I heaved them out of the trough. As soon as they were clear, I reached over and unhooked the tub trying to save the bit of feed the gals had left on the bottom. Unfortunately I found that the stall door leading into the barn was fastened tight (Goldie likes to lean on the door when she’s inside and sliding the latch over helps keep the door in place).

Turning, I headed out with the grain bin then tried to juggle the greedy goats, the grain bin, and the screen door all at once. The result was that the grain bin landed in the alpaca stall (so that alpaca feed was feeding alpacas), on the floor not far in from the door, and the screen door was set in place with the goats on the pasture side. BullyBob did not make fastening the screen in place exactly easy, indeed I had to hip-check his stinky yellow-brown self against the door while trying to reach past him to fasten the clips. This is not the time of year when anyone wants to get cuddly with BullyBob, well anyone except the girl goats … they moon about on the opposite side of the fence and alert me as to who is ready for dating.

When the screen was fastened, I hustled around the barn to enter the boys’ stall from the inside and pick up the girls’ feed tub. Navigating the gate, the hungry girl goats gathered around the gate, and the seething mass of puppies feeding in the barn’s interior corridor I made it to the boys’ stall just in time to hear an anguished goat wail. I’m familiar with the sound. It pierces the air whenever the bigger goats are ruthlessly butting a smaller, weaker goat. I assumed that Brad or Sting had taken it upon himself to tackle little Hugh Jackman, but I was wrong.

Upon entering the alpaca boys’ stall, I saw that big ol’ Brad Pitt had wedged himself halfway through the “screen door” in pursuit of the alpacas’ grain. Now Brad has not been able to pass through those bars for several weeks now, although Hugh (born the same day) can sometimes still squeeze through. But Brad was in and very tightly. As I said, food is a grand motivator that makes some goats lose all reason.

It probably took 15 to 20 minutes of wrestling with Brad in the fading light and the mud-and-manure slick doorway before I was able to twist his body and inch him back out of the trap he had made for himself. I worked from both sides of the screen, both pushing at his chest and pulling on his back end. He was not a happy goat, but at least he eventually seemed to understand what I was trying to do and after five minutes or so he relaxed when I pushed or pulled, instead of tensing up and pulling forward.

Right after he was freed it occurred to me that I should have taken a photo. Oh well.