For the Love of Goats

We used to keep a mixed flock of goats and Katahdin sheep. We got rid of the goats. The event that tipped us over the edge was when my wife was on a ladder trying to fix the gutters on the barn. One of the goats was watching her with a jaundiced eye. After she got to the top of the ladder and was leaning over trying to reach the loose gutter, the goat decided that was the perfect time to butt the ladder - attempted homicide of the shepherd.

But this was just the last event in a long line of offenses. There is a good reason why sheep are associated with righteousness and goats with wickedness in the Bible. Sheep treat each other with much more kindness than goats. When you feed grain to the sheep, the first sheep sees you, baa's, and the rest of the herd comes running. They jostle each other at the grain feeder but fundamentally everyone gets to eat. When you feed goats, on the other hand, the first goat who sees you will try to sneak into the barnyard without making a sound, the better to eat all the grain herself. If two (or more) goats see you, they will proceed to fight in order to decide who gets to eat first. They will do this every single day, without fail, the same fight over and over and over.

Sheep have a sociality. When it's time to leave the barn in the morning, everyone lines up single file, with the head ewe in front and the ram, if there is one, in the very back. The head ewe will take a few steps, stop, look and smell. Everyone behind her will stop and wait. She'll take a few more steps and repeat. The ram makes sure nobody gets left behind. Going a hundred yards into the pasture can take ten minutes.

We never found any sociality in goats. Sheep are members of a tribe. Goats are the ultimate individuals.

When I was in junior school, a goat (named Billy, of course) used to stay in a part of a garden which was really steep. One day I happened to stroll in, and before I knew it, there was Billy between me and the gate. He had the beadiest little yellow eyes and he proceeded to lower his head and aim is horns at me, as he accelerated toward me on a narrow ledge. I ran out of fear and before I knew what was happening, I found I was flying down the steep slope, landing at the very bottom. I have no idea how nothing happened to me, but that day I learned first hand about how fear lends you wings. I've never forgotten Billy (it's now part of our family lore and I even took my daughters to my old school and the very place all this happened) though I never bore a grudge against Billy or goats in general.

I have goats and like them. "sweet fermenting odor": This person has never been around a billy goat. They stink and it sticks around. I like goats as farm pets. They can be a bit, well, goatly in butting and biting. Goat TV though rocks.

I have a small herd of goats, mixed between dairy and meat varieties of a few different breeds. They're great to have around for lawnmowing, milk, and fun. They are as interesting and expressive as dogs and cats, each with his or her own personality and distinctive behaviors. They can be troublemakers when they want, finding any available gap in the fence just to test it, but who doesn't?

See too the following story of Brenda the attention-seeking goat:

https://me.me/i/his-quietus-make-i-once-took-my-kids-to-a-lo...

Not to take away from the perfectly adequate linked article, but as a philosophical musing on keeping goats, it reminded me of the fabulous book "Goatwalking" by Jim Corbett. It's a hard to describe book that covers a lot of territory in not too many pages. Here's a review by Mark Schlenze that I think captures a lot of it:

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From the premise that is it possible for individuals with sufficient knowledge of range-goat husbandry and edible plants to depend only upon a couple of milk goats for the nourishment and liquid necessary for survival in the desert wildlands, Jim Corbett draws dramatic implications for the practice of a viable land ethic and the wholesale restructuring of society upon communitarian and ecological principles. In the process, Corbett somehow manages to deliver an intriguing autobiography, detail nuances of desert survival, challenge and reinterpret Western and Eastern philosophic traditions, negotiate the convergences of Catholic liberation theology and Quaker belief, and depict the struggle of the sanctuary movement to assist political refugees from El Salvador in the 1980s. From pastoral nomadism to political activism, Corbett explores the possibility of discovering, adopting and maintaining a right way of being in the world.

Though Larry McMurtry once called Edward Abbey "the Thoreau of the American West," Jim Corbett may perhaps be more deserving of the title. At any rate, Goatwalking can certainly be read as a western Walden. Corbett's ruminations upon wilderness and natural history lead as inevitably as those of the New England sage to thorny issues of ethical judgement and social action. Corbett, however, even manages to work beyond Thoreau's curmudgeonly isolationism and symbolic civil disobedience to articulate the dynamic workings of what he calls the "covenant community" and a process of "civil initiative" as foundations for healthful identity, revolutionary involvement, and a right relation with the earth.

Goatwalking is a difficult book, dense with data, speculation, and moral imperative. The text defies taxonomy, but one recognizes---among other interwoven genre---the continuity of the confessional. Corbett's severe self-scrutiny of a life lived in the demanding and fragile landscapes of the Sonoran desert and the American Southwest challenges attentive readers into honest confrontation with the social and ecological contradictions of their own existence and points to no easy way out. Though the terrain is treacherous, Corbett is at least a competent, if exacting, guide, and the example of his personal quest for a peaceable kingdom should serve to inform and inspire fellow travelers.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/532483/pdf

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If you liked the linked article enough to be reading these comments, you should probably track down and read Goatwalking. It's out of print, and doesn't seem to be anywhere online, but it's worth it. Buy a used copy or submit an inter-library loan request. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and reading it may very well change your life.