Recently, however, a certain new goat attempted a coup of the barn area. He might have actually succeeded, had he not attempted his coup during the one week per month that Farm Girl can top ANY living thing's aggression...even a buck in rut.
A buck has never lived here permanently. They have always been leased, and then promptly sent home after they had done the deed. So there was never any reason to bond - or even touch - the nasty, stinky boys. However, now that the herd is CAE-free, and now that Farm Girl is incredibly paranoid about bringing diseases into her clean herd, the decision was made to purchase a buck.
Enter MKF Macy's Henry IV Cognac. Except Farm Girl calls him Jacob, because she wants her Biblical metaphor to stick. In fact, when she sells him eventually and gets a new buck, he will also be called Jacob. Anyway, Farm Girl had very little experience with a buck. The breeder assured her that because he is a bottle baby, he is a sweetheart. He's only a year old, so he isn't even full grown yet...120 pounds max. As he was unloaded, he allowed Farm Girl to lead him around by the collar, and generally behaved like a gentleman. After getting him settled in (on the other side of the property from Rachel and Leah), Farm Girl went in to the house for a while. But being THAT week, she decided that she should go out to check on him before the complaining children got the best of her temper. She walked through the gate, and just like all the goats Farm Girl has raised, he came running to greet her, his cute ears flapping in the wind like Dumbo. (There is nothing cuter than a Nubian goat running). Except when he got to her, he didn't stop. He lifted up his head and brought it full swing into Farm Girl's cramping abdomen. Oh, HELL no. Shocked beyond rational thought, she ran to the barn, which of course he took as, "chase her because she's playing hard to get." Poor Farm Girl was trapped for a solid hour until she could figure out what to do.
She spent that hour in the barn researching with her phone. As it turns out, this behavior is normal for bucks, and it will get even worse when he is put with the girls next month. Apparently, Farm Girl has to show him she's the boss by TACKLING this beast and holding him down until he stops struggling, which might take up to an hour. This process may have to be repeated multiple times. Seriously??? OK, well, at least he doesn't smell too bad yet.
He was waiting for her at the door. There was circling by both parties to get in position, then she grabbed his legs and flipped. He actually went down pretty easily. She straddled him and spent 10 minutes heaping verbal abuse on him, during which time he never struggled AT ALL. He was completely subdued. Confident in her victory, Farm girl let him up, and he ran off. "That's RIGHT! And don't you forget it!" she hollered after him.
But alas, goats are stubborn...and many of them have short term memory deficits... and that was not enough for Jacob to learn his place. After four more days of this nonsense, Farm girl bought a small cattle prod. Nope...still not enough. That just made Jacob angry and more determined. You know what works? You know what Jacob hates more than anything, including electricity? Water. One squirt in the face with a water gun, and Jacob acts like he's been shot with a stream of acid. Jacob and Farm Girl have finally come to an understanding. They will never be friends, but Jacob understands that Farm Girl is BOSS, because she has the deadly 9mm squirt gun.
I love it!!! Learn all the hard stuff so that when I do finally get my farm, I will be able to breeze through easily on the back of all your hard work and knowledge-sharing!
ReplyDelete