This guy took care of a goat for a week. What happened next will make you cry
Zen and the art of goat keeping
Who gets a goat? The background
The house we bought in 2011 was a sweet deal. In part because… it used to be a drug house. No joke. Everyone we talk to in the neighborhood always goes “oh you moved into that house!?! You do know the history, right?” In addition to finding a gun clip in the backyard there were plenty of weeds. Weeds for days. It’s a BIG backyard and while the flippers did a good job of landscaping it didn’t take long for years of seeds to begin sprouting. There is only so much weeding one man can do. I had a three phase plan of attack. Cut back all the weeds, collect cardboard and cover the ground, cover the cardboard with mulch from a tree trimming company (phases 2 and 3 can be a different post).
Phase 1: Let’s Use a Goat
Finding a goat was actually the easy part. It’s called “Craigslist.” for $50 this guy dropped off his goat with me for a few days. We didn’t schedule a pick-up date. In hindsight — that was a mistake. I was hoping for 4 days. It ended up being 7 or 8.
His name was Billy. He was (obviously) male, maybe 180lbs. He was huge. He had a very good attitude. Loved being around people. He would rub his horns up and down your body as a sign of affection, not unlike a cat purring. When you entered the yard he got exited and trotted to you. Once or twice he went into a full gallop and I got nervous, braced myself for impact with a goat, only to find him slowing down and rubbing up against me.
Billy was difficult to control. You could lead him around a bit by his horns, but for the most part, he went where he wanted. At first I tried to restrict his movement with chicken wire. This was a futile effort. He easily trampled over any attempts I made at caging him in. I then retreated to putting chicken wire over JUST the places I didn’t want him to go (the porch and specific oleander plants). That too failed. Every night Billy easily hoped over chicken wire went up the stairs to our back deck. That is where he slept. Every morning the deck was covered in goat piss and poo. He had no qualms.
We had three oleander plants. The guy who dropped off Billy wanted to check the backyard first to see if there were any poisonous plants for Billy. He pointed to the oleander and said they were bad for him, but he wasn’t worried because the goats knew not to eat it. He was right. Instead, Billy HATED the oleander plants. Anytime he walked past them he would shake his head at them and his horns would tear them apart. It was as if he was a bull sharpening his horns on the plant. His singular goal was to make sure the oleander plants died. He could be happily eating and then see the oleander plant and go into a fit shaking his head at it, each whip of his horns taking off leaves. Chicken wire be damned. Billy was successful. It was not that big of a deal. We weren’t the biggest fan of the oleander anyways.
His favorite plant to eat in my yard — the ivy. Thankfully — he never touched the grass.
The cat HATED this goat. At night the goat would look into the house on the porch and the cat would stare back and hiss.
The next obvious thing about the goat is the smell. It is…. pungent. You could smell the goat the second you parked your car anywhere near my house. I’m sure the neighbors were wishing we had just been new drug dealers. I wore special goat pajamas (some pajama pants and a hoodie from high school) the whole week. Anytime I went outside, I’d put on the goat pajamas to try and limit how much of my clothes stunk. To this day, my hoodie still has a faint goat smell.
I do not regret the decision to have a goat for a week in our Berkeley yard. He did a hell of a job eating weeds. He was a bit of a hassle to take care of. The mornings were particularly tough (waking up, putting on goat pajamas and cleaning the porch) but he definitely executed phase 1 of the plan — enabling phases 2/3 to be discussed in another post. I’m proud to say our backyard still has weeds, but NOTHING like in these pictures. A few days of sunlight and the smell of the goat had been broken down. Only the occasional pellet was proof he had even been here.
Would I do it again? Yes — but only for 4 days.
