As I led my poisoned goat down our hill with bribes of oak leaves, I found myself wondering if Laura Ingalls Wilder ever did what I was doing. I don't think they ever had a goat. They were more sensible, limited their farm to a cow, chickens, a pig and some horses.
I was lulled into a false sense of security before we brought Daisy home. We have a fully fenced pasture but the pasture was fenced for horses, which, I have learned, is an important detail in the "are you prepared for a goat" checklist. Goats are notorious escape artists. They can climb, wiggle and jump through all kinds of enclosures. I've read that to really keep them in, you need fence as high as a deer fence and as strong as a fence for bulls. Or you can systematically remove all poisonous plants from the environment and pray for the best. We've done neither.
I'm working on re-fencing a small pasture but I'm doing it alone and it's time consuming, especially when you take into account the three littles who like to play hide and seek in our run-in, that is literally falling apart. It's so falling apart, the goat actually got stuck in it and couldn't climb out. You have to understand that this goat can climb nearly anything, including the "rock wall" on our swing set. Mr. Cubby told me the story later, after they had rescued her. I'm not sure how two three year olds and a four year old managed to rescue a baby goat but I didn't want to pry. They didn't get tetanus so it was worth it.
Daisy is a Saanen/ La Mancha dairy goat. She's white and has freaky eyes with rectangular pupils and tiny, tiny ears. We bottle feed her. She's 8 weeks old and could be weened but bottle feeding her is supposed to make her more tame... we'll see. People I know have bets places on how many more months she'll continue to survive on our little farm, and this was before they had heard about her eating our azaleas. I think that as long as we can keep her contained she'll be fine.
