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Comment by yitchelle | Hacker News Reader

Story time - My dad asked the local school which had a goat if he can borrow it for a weekend. It was to tame his backyard. As the backyard was enclosed with no chance of the goat escaping, we left it by itself. The goat was be extremely hungry and ate everything insight including the roots, leaves and bark. By Monday, the backyard is barren and took months recover.

Moral of the story - keep an eye on the goat.

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In German, there’s an old phrase: “Appointing the goat as gardener”. You use it when somebody is being made responsible for task for which he is not just incompetent, but where he will actually cause damage - for instance because he has ulterior motives.

Fantastic. I think most of the "equivalents" miss a lot of the nuance.

We don't expect the fox to be any good at guarding the chickens, but the goat could plausibly start out as a good gardener ("mowing" the grass and eating the weeds). But then through enthusiasm and love of the work end up ruining the garden...

Fox guarding the hen house seems like the English equivalent to that.

It's similar, but not quite equivalent.

The fox is malicious. It knows it will destroy the property, whereas the goat is happily oblivious to the destruction it brings.

> is not just incompetent, but where he will actually cause damage - for instance because he has ulterior motives.

That made me think it was more. And anyway, as much as the fox does with chickens, the goat knows it will set about to kill and eat plants. There's no real reason to call the fox knowingly malicious and the goat not.

>There's no real reason to call the fox knowingly malicious and the goat not.

I think we imagine foxes to have a level of cunning that a placid goat lacks.

Goats are anything but placid. They’re tricksters and bullies. They won’t hesitate to charge you from behind and knock you down. They will also happily chew on people’s clothing and long hair. Goats are jerks! They’re also just really funny and lovable.

Rascality and loveability are intertwined and inseparable

And thank goodness for that, otherwise I would be completely insufferable ;-)

Ha, you have not worked with goats before, have you?

Even some sheep like to sneak up and attack from behind. Goats even more so..

But sure most goats lack that bravery, but some have it and the cunning to attack and get to places they are not supposed to be.

Touché, I have zero experience of goats. Thanks for putting me right!

While the fox features in a larger variety of animistic stories, the goat is not without its own set of parables.

Only because their prey has a nervous system

In Hungarian, we mix the two of yours: Goat guarding the cabbage.

In Finland we have almost exactly the same: Goat guarding the gabbage patch.

And to the right, we say "Let the wolf guard the sheep" :)

That seems to imply maliciousness on the fox‘ side. The goat is merely ignorant.

Some goats are extremely malicious.

Goats are fundamental anarchists. They are not evil, they just have a chaotic energy beyond comprehension.

Yeah, you ever look at their evil little eyes. If that isn’t maliciousness distilled…

And yet in this corner of India, some butchers blindfold goats since they can't proceed while looking them in their cute eyes.

In fact that is why we call lucifer the goat-man, the joke in the tv series lucifer reason aside.

Or the goat is contained in too small of an area for too long. Much like an inexperienced person without supervision...

Norwegian equivalent:

«To let the billy watch the sack of oats.»

A billy/buck goat is a male goat.

The German proverb is also about a "Bock", same word, same meaning.

Can you share the German language phrase? I tried to Google for it, but I cannot find anything.

Den Bock zum Gärtner machen

"Pukki kaalimaan vartijana" for the Finnish equivalent (goat guarding the cabbage patch)

We have “fox guarding the henhouse” which is closer in tone to the Finnish phrase perhaps than the German one.

In Czech, "udělat kozla zahradníkem".

Is the emphasis of what will cause the damage more about the incompetence, or about more purposeful nefarity from the eg. ulterior motives?

I think most goats don't have sinister ulterior motives! Except for one goat but probably that's not the one in your garden

Meaning, I'm guessing it's about happy incompetence and thoughtlessness?

Goats' motivations are mostly to eat tasty tree bark and (some) other plants. Hardly incompetent or thoughtless, they're relentless if not contained.

I have three, and the only incompetence at play is when I accidentally don't contain them well enough. From my last event: https://fractaldragon.net/posts/2022-05-09_bloody_goats.html

Interesting read :-) With cats, apparently one can spray water on them when they're at the border to ones garden, and eventually, also when you aren't there, they still think they'll get water on themselves if they go outside the garden. So they don't -- a border has been created in their mind.

I wonder if that works with goats, instead of the gate? I guess not.

Maybe also doesn't work with smarter cats, hmm.

(I suppose it's not your boy in the video?)

> the stripped area can be bridged with thin shoots embedded into the bark on each end of the open wound

Didn't know, I was surprised to read that it actually worked :-)

I don't know if it would work on goats., They aren't fond of being rained on though, so maybe? They are really motivated however, and smart enough to figure it out.

The bridge grafting worked great! The tree never lost any leaves or flowers, now has plums on it. For what it's worth, the shoots I spliced are now brown on the outside like the regular bark.

And no, not my kid, but made me laugh.

I’m not sure. I’d say it’s mostly on hire unwise the choice is, and how predictable the results. Kinda like the fable The Scorpion and the Frog.

> ulterior motives. LOLLLLLL.

love that, thanks!

> with no chance of the goat escaping

Bold assumption there. As they say, "if it doesn't hold water it won't hold a goat."

My town stopped its annual “goats clear the park” setup because one goat would consistently escape and wreak havoc on traffic. Pretty solid enclosure, too

Sounds like they should replace it with "goats clear the park and BBQ"

An electric fence goes a long way, and can be portable. Works great as long as you remember to close the gate. cough

The same goat each time?

As long as extracting whatever food there is is less effort than circumventing the fence the goat will remain...

I think modeling a goat as a rational agent is also pretty bold :-)

You'd think so... but yeah, they have their own sort of smarts. Mine are very adept at reaching or finding tasty plants. One was less bright about plants on the other side of a fence that her horns fit through, one way. I had to rescue her about eight times, until the horns were long enough to not go through the fence wire.

And if it does hold water, they’ll climb it anyway.

https://youtu.be/RG9TMn1FJzc

I guess if we left the goat long enough, it will eat thorough the fence. Then the neighbours garden will also be barren.

I sense a mathematical question.

Many years ago I heard of a family whose goat ate through the thatch roof and then started eating stuff inside the house. Don’t leave the goat alone.

Not a goat farmer so not sure if goats do that. Anyone know?

Note that if tree bark is eaten all around the tree circumference, the tree dies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdling

Yes, a couple of the trees needed replacing.

Looks like she goat herself in trouble

Perfect Reddit comment ;)

Goats are excellent land management if you have enough land and don't mind everything getting eaten to near the ground

our state DOT has rented goats to clean the sides of roads along highways in some rural areas, especially when there are large amount of noxious weeds. The person they hire strings up a bunch of short fiberglass poles for a mile or two along the highway with some wires, puts out some water, and then lets the goats in. Comes back and picks them up a couple of days later, and moves them to the other side.

Goats LOVE poison ivy and oak, and it doesn't hurt them. Don't let them near hemlock though (it will do the same to them as it did Socrates)

They seem to like Scotch broom as well. Some red-leafed garden ornamental is brutally toxic to them though, and it can be a slow, agonizing death.

Not just some wire but a portable electric fence.

Ok, I have to ask. Why did the school have goat?

It was a progressive school in the country side. I think most of the students are from the local farming community.

What I see is months of not needing to operate a mower.

You need sheep for that. Goats don't much like grass. I have to mow our paddock, except for when I borrowed a friend's sheep for a few days.

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