I think I hate the goat

10 August 2011 3 Comments

Today I had a Mexican standoff with the goat.

The goat is surprisingly intelligent.

Let’s digress for a moment. The barn has two stalls set up as feed stalls—one for the barn manager’s horses and horses on full board, and one for partial boarders. I have a stall at the end of the barn that I use to store hay (I like to feed more hay than the barn provides). I figured, logically, that I might as well store my feed in my stall as well so that I have everything in one place.

This worked fantastically. Before the goat.

And then, one day the goat saw me prepping Ro’s feed. The next day, I came in and found he had knocked over my container and eaten half my food. Like I said, he’s surprisingly intelligent. He only needs to see a thing once: There is food inside this thing? And you get to the food by removing that cover? So if I knock the container over…

My feed is now in the feed room, which is goat proof.

Problem solved, right?

Nope. Although I moved the grain to the feed stall, I left my supplements and the bucket I use to prep her feed in my hay stall. I don’t want to clutter up the feed stall, and all of these are theoretically goat proof.

But since Ro gets fed her evening grain when I am there, which is invariably not the same time as the full boarders get their grain, I have the goat’s full attention when I am prepping. He watches me put grain in my bucket. He watches me go back to the hay stall and put stuff from the small containers in my bucket. And then he watches me feed Ro.

His conclusion: the bucket and all the little containers must be edible. Or contain edible things. Or both.

Every day he knocks down my shelf, kicks around the supplement containers, and noses the empty bucket around my hay stall. I thought he’d give up after a day or two and realize the bucket is always empty and the supplement containers can’t be opened, but he knows there is edible stuff there, somewhere, and is determined to get to it. Intelligent and tenacious. Great.

But I have a bigger problem on my hands: Ro, who will chase off the horse in the next paddock if he so much as looks at her grain, is confused by the goat. He waltzes right into her paddock as if she isn’t there. She pins her ears at him, and he ignores her. She looks at me. She makes Nasty Mare Face. He ignores her. She pins her ears and snaps at him. He ignores her. She looks at me, at a complete loss: OMGWTFBBQ. Make him go away!

Right.

Riiiiight.

For a couple days, I was able to catch the goat and tie him up.

This taught Mr. Rocket Science an important lesson: now he runs away from me so that I can’t tie him up.

This is how we ended up in tonight’s Mexican standoff.

I dropped Ro’s feed for her. She chased off her neighbor, who was looking in her direction, and started eating with all the urgency of a Lady Who Lunches. This is not a horse who will ever be in danger of choking from bolting her food. Entire empires could rise and fall in the time it takes her to finish a meal.

The goat stood at the end of the row of paddocks and looked at me: Hmm? What? I don’t want your horse’s stupid grain. I’m just scratching my head on this fence. See? Itchy. Oh, look, is that a bird over there? Look at the pretty birdy. Don’t pay attention to the goat. The goat is not walking forward… whaaaat? I’m just eating this grass here. Yummy grass. Mmmmm. I could live my whole life and never eat anything but grass, but hey, see that bucket? I’m not interested in your stupid grain, I just want to make sure that other horse’s bucket is empty. Even though I could live my whole life on grass, sometimes that horse leaves feed, and feed can ferment in the heat, so I’ll just lick this bucket clean and save him from an agonizing death. And then, um, that rock. It could be edible. Swear to Bob, I am not trying to get closer to your horse’s feed. I just want to check out the rock…

I believed him as much as he believed that I wasn’t out to catch him, really, I just wanted to scratch his head, honest…

It worries me that the standoff ended in a tie. Like I said, the goat is smart. I expect him to Have A Plan tomorrow night. Which means I need to have a better plan. I need to find the book Goats for Dummies: 1001 to Outsmart Your New Nemesis. If it doesn’t exist, I have a feeling I’ll be able to write it by the end of the week.

Inane and Mundane