I Got Punched in the Face by a Goat
What it’s like to be a goat farmer, in case you were sitting around wondering if you should get a herd of goats and turn your property into a hobby farm
To be fair to Daisy, she didn’t mean to hurt me. Probably.
Today I tossed a bale of straw into the goat pen, then went into the pen to spread it in the smaller, less-used barn. My hope was to convince the goats that the small barn is also a viable place to sleep. Lately, as the nights are growing colder, I’ve been concerned that Margaret is guarding the doorway at night, not allowing Edith and her daughters to sleep inside the stall.
Margaret is mean like that. She’s also tiny, even for a Pygmy-Nigerian Dwarf cross. But she has horns, and Edith and her girls do not. The horns enable her to bully the bigger goats.
Every morning when I look outside, Edith and her girls are curled up together outside of the barn — either snuggled up against the building or snuggled up under the hay feeder.
I feel bad for Edith and her girls, but it’s a little bit their own fault — there’s a second, smaller barn they could go sleep in. It’s not as fancy as the big barn, and there’s a hole in the wall because goats are destructive. But it’s warmer than sleeping outside.
And, so, today I spread straw in the smaller barn, thinking that would make it new and exciting and The Place to Be. As I was spreading hay, Daisy came over for attention. When she was a baby, she liked to crawl up on my back. It was cute when she was little. It’s not cute anymore.
She put her front hooves up on me just as I turned to face her. Her hoof connected with my jaw.
I’ll likely have a bruise tomorrow. Also, I hit my head on a wooden beam as I was spreading hay (my brother-in-law built the barns, and, for some reason, booby-trapped them with low beams for us to hit our heads on. I’m only five feet tall. I should not be hitting my head going in and out of doorways).
I don’t always hurt myself when I have to go do goat chores, but it’s certainly not uncommon. The worst was one time when I was repairing one of the gates. I dropped a screw, and as I knelt to find it, a goat slammed into the other side of the gate, smacking me in the head and compressing my spine. That incident resulted in several trips to my chiropractor.
But goats are worth it. They like hugs and tolerate kisses. They’re funny and sweet. They just also happen to be big, clumsy, lovable oafs.
