Feeding Goats

Oh, I realized I forgot to write about feeding time on Friday.

I went in to give the goats their grain, and noticed that not much grain had been eaten since the morning. Then I noticed that the submissive goat was the closest to the grain, instead of being pushed out of the way by the dominant goat. Then I noticed a round fluffy object lying next to the door to the outside. Even when it got up on its goat legs and tried to flee, I still couldn't quite believe it was a goat I was looking at. I also had a hard time believing that it was really stuck. Those things could wedge their little heads through anything, but, as it turns out, therein lies the problem.

In an attempt to eat grass Cotton Candy (the goat in question) had wedged her little head in between the door and the floor of the stall. Pushing the door out a little. Gravity pushed the door down, and the top of her skull was above the lower edge of the door, she had no way to simultaneously push the door out and pull her head back in. The perfect one-way goats-head valve. So I walked over there slowly, and oddly enough when she struggled and I said "easy, easy" she relaxed. I would not relax in this situation, but then, who knows how long she had been there, getting used to her helplessness.

Vic came in and saw her and decided the solution was to open the door. He accepted absolutely no input from me and gave me very little himself, both of which turned out to be a serious problem towards the end. He went around to the wrong stall, and then to the correct one to get into the pasture outside the door. He started trying to unlatch the door, which I was pushing on the door to see if I could just get her out the way she came in. As you might imagine its hard to do both at the same time. When I gave up on it he managed to open the lock, and with hardly a word to me, started sliding the door open.

In order to trap a goat's neck in something, it turns out you have to apply a lot of pressure, which the door was doing. When it started to slide I noticed that Vic wasn't lifting the door at all while he slid, so the door was just scraping across Cotton Candy's neck. Vic couldn't see this from his angle. So I used one hand to push the goat down, and one hand to try to lift the door just a little bit to take the pressure off. The door was open a little ways and we stopped to see if we could drag the goat to the opening rather than the opening all the way to the goat. No dice.

Vic pushed the door open some more, I continued pushing down on the goat and up on the door. We were nearly to the end before I noticed that the metal side of the door came down way past the last board in the door. A while ago the bottom board must have fallen out. (This board probably would have prevented this whole issue in the first place.) So now Vic was doggedly pushing this thin strip of metal towards the goat, whose head was braced on the other side by the doorway. It was a little like when the slow moving laser is headed for James Bond.

I shouted for Vic to stop, but he either didn't hear me, didn't understand me, or thought I was talking to the goat. I shouted and shouted until the edge of the metal was a finger's width from its victim. Vic still didn't stop. Fortunately, I had my gloves on, and fortunately ornery ponies have pulled on me enough times that I can handle a pretty good amount of force with one hand. So I was restraining Vic with one hand and shouting at the same time. It seemed like forever before the laser finally stopped.

After discussing the situation Vic and I together lifted the door and then pulled it out and away from the goat. It wasn't much, but with some coaxing it was just enough to get her head free from the door. Now, I dont usually describe goats as looking indignant, since I dont attribute a whole lot of dignity to goats in the first place, but thats the only way I can describe how she looked when she shook the bedding off her coat, glanced at me and then walked calmly but quickly over to the grain and ate ravenously.

Goats bring so much joy and excitement to feeding time.