The Escape Artist

I have kept goats for three years now, and I never had a problem with them trying to escape.  I always thought it was funny how much other goat keepers talked about it, as if it was some sort of widespread, natural goat act.  "If goat is in pen, goat must try to get out of pen by any means possible."  You know, something like that.

Well my dear Dino (who looks really goofy right now because he recently got a shoddy hair cut from his inexperienced-with-hand-shearing owner) has broken my non-goat-escaping record.  A few mornings ago I walked outside to find him sitting on the milking stanchion, wet from the last night's rain.  Could not figure out how in the heck he escaped.  I put him back in his pen and the next day, the same thing.  Did some more sleuthing around and found that the grass right outside of his pen, near where their house is stationed, was spayed every which-way, as if something had landed there.  Hm.  It was all beginning to make sense.

It seems that he had somehow jumped up on top of his house (which is pretty tall, and positioned about 3-4 feet from the fence line) and propelled himself about 5-6 feet over the fence and landed on the other side.  What a turd!  I had to pen him up on the front porch until my husband got home to help me come up with a good solution.  He consequently destroyed my front porch--he somehow managed to get himself stuck in stool/side table, pooped on everything in sight, and then knocked it all over.  At that point he went back in the pen and I decided to let fate decide what happened to the booger.

So that night and yesterday we had to pen him up in a little tiny cage-like pen, which I hated to do, but it was better than him getting out and being attacked by a dog or coyote or mountain lion (which apparently we have around here).  And he couldn't stay on the girl's side, because I DO NOT want him getting freaky with them until the fall.  Those poor girls need a break!

Well, I went out to check on the goaties this morning, and guess who had somehow managed to escape his 4.5" high, with nothing to climb up on and no way to squeeze out pen and was lounging around with the girls?

ARG!

Sigh.

In other news, isn't Dave cute?

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Ohhh yeah.  Love the scratches!

~Bessie