Baby...The Million Dollar Golden Goat

Crazy Caprines

I remember it like it was just yesterday. The first batch of kids were hitting the ground all over the place on our little mini-farm. What sheer excitement it was! New to the goat business, we had taken in fourteen new goats from my husbands ill uncle and the does were all bred. I wasn't even sure what breed of goat they were, all I knew was that the uncle was very ill and there was no one to care for his goats. A severe stroke left the man unable to tend to his herd and his children were looking for someone, anyone, to take the animals and care for them. Here, we enter the pitcure.

Driving to take delivery of the caprine herd, I was all ajitter with excitement. Sorry that I was about the elderly gentleman's plight, I was thrilled, as a new goat farmer, to be aquiring so many goats. I knew nothing of the herd, but was totally sure they were fine animals who had been cared for with tender thought. I imagined sweet natured, docile animals eager and happy to see us coming with the cattle trailer. After all, my doelings back home loved us. I was certain this would be the case with the new herd members as well.

Pulling into the yard of the now empty house, I could see the goats behind the house in a fenced area. Several of the critters were large and solid black. Some were smaller with the coloring of a Holstein milk cow. White and black. All were scared out of their wits. The buck, which was a running wild man, was a yellowish-brindle color and shaggy! Thin throughout his body, I decided that he must be a marathon trainee, because he could run like the dickens and jump like a pole volter! His eyes told us that he had never been handled much and he wasn't planning on starting today. Yes, he was a little loco, to say the least.

Now, being all shiny and inexperienced to goat farming, I stood quietly back to observe. In all honesty, I was trying not be trampled to death by this raging herd of hooves and horns! All of the goats seemed to be horribly afraid of humans and determined not to be caught. The fenced area was about an acre and a half, so the scrambling herd had plenty of room to run full out everytime anyone came close to them. Just as you would grab for a horn (or leg, or head, or whatever you could grab for!) the wild beasts would bolt and run like a pack of speeding Hyenas. I could tell this was going to be a little harder than I had thought. My sweet dreams of earlier suddenly became a nightmare filled with bawling, screaming, crazy goats flying through the air.