The Adventure

Meet Rocky and Napel

 Rocky - 5 year old AAGBA white (his face has been trimmed since I got him so he can see better.)

 Napel- 6 year old CAGBA black

I just got these two big guys on Wed. night from Judy Picken, Goathill Farm (I had gotten a buck from her before and one of my foundation does was out of her breeding.) Judy no longer wants to breed and does not want to keep bucks so I decided to get them. Judy brought them down to the Wagers (the mill where I work) as she was selling them some of her mohair. We loaded the boys into the back of my truck and I was on my way home.

I backed up to the barn angling to the pen on the side. My dad came to help and tide a hog panel round a t-post so they would go into the pen. Well haha, the black one-Napel jumped over the panel as he was jumping out and into the barn, not the pen. OK (the barn door does not shut as it needs fixing), I thought I could quickly swing the panel over so he'd go into the pen from the barn, but my dad had wrapped the twin around so much I could not get the panel moved before Napel took off. Rocky had jumped into the pen which goes into another pen.

Napel ran down the drive way and saw my lambs he looked like he wanted to see them. I tried to grab him, he ran across the road and zig zagged back and forth across the road.  Finally he started to tire and I cought him in the neighbor's flower bed.

I dragged the unwilling goat home and immediately after releasing him in the pen he jumped into the calf hutch to hide! Big baby!

Hmm, where is Rocky? He's not in the calf hut, not in with the boys, not in with the ewes....I was checking to see if he got in with the lambs (all the while the truth that he's gone is sinking in like a slow dread) and a car pulls up and a lady gets out and says, "There's is big shaggy sheep in the ditch a house down, is it yours?"

By the time I got to the ditch a house down the "big shaggy sheep" was gone. Gone. GONE! Oh, no! The last run away was a ram and he got out the day I got him and ran 2 miles in 2 or 3 hours. They can go far. Ok a full fleeced angora won't go as fast, but still.

I drive up and down, I walk around in the ditch and in the field, I look and stop at the neighbors behind us  who have a cow and some steers, we check-not there. Not where the runaway ram turned up. (Seriously check there about 6 times, yeah the likelihood of a second animal in the same spot is small, but I kept checking.) OK He's gone, I half to feed my sheep and water lambs.

I called the constable and the sheriff. The constable drove around with a deer shiner, and wait for it, NO buck.

The next day I had to work and then came home and as we were eating supper the doorbell rings and I guy says, "There is a goat in the ditch down the road across the highway."

We race (Mom and Dad in the car and I in my truck) off an Mr.Runnaway Goat is indeed in the ditch. He really is there!!

The ditch is across the road from us and near where Shoe Lake is. There are trees on one side of the road and then on the other side a corn field. Farther down is the drive for Shoe Lake and then trees on both sides of the road.

I shake a bucket and he starts coming, then spooks and takes off into the trees. My mom and I try chasing him in the woods and then both of us loose sight of him. I don't want to give up and wander around in the woods, then see a deer or goat trail and follow it. It leads to a swamp behind the woods and continues into the swamp. There's the buck! Just standing in cat tails! I walk over to him and am up to my ankles in swamp water-he's up to his belly. (I think he didn't know what to do so that is why he was just standing there.)

I think how nice it will be to walk him out and put him in with Napel. Easier-said-than-done. I try to drag him out of the swamp and he thrashes around I fling myself on him so he won't get away and he goes down and so do I in the swamp. We do that twice as it was so much fun. I'm wet up to my shoulders in swamp water and Rocky is wet up to his mid sides and his face is wet. He was a white buck and turned rather grey from the swamp water.

My dad ran to get the halter that was abandoned on the side of the road when Rocky took to the trees.

After my dad and my mom help get Rocky out of the woods, up the ditch and onto the road (all with as much pulling back as possible on the goat's part), my parents both think it will be easier to walk the buck home. (I wanted to put him in the cab part of my truck as we couldn't lift a wrangling goat into the box part. ) My dad drove my lifeboat,oops, truck home.

My mom holding one horn and I the other with the halter wrapped around my hand start the long journey home. Buck goats are exceptionally strong. Rocky is probably around 150#, but is not any easier to move than a 800# steer. Every few steps and Rock violently swings his head from side to side. Jerk, yank, jerk, yank. Wet bucks are also slippery.

My mom decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to put him in my truck, walks to the car; and was going to drive home, get the truck, and come back.

Two boys about 10 or 12 ride up on bikes and ask, "What did you catch?!" This is a buck goat and I told them all about him. "Can we help?" one boy hold the bucks horn and the other pushed on him. All of a sudden Rocky does his powerfully head swing and I go flying (my mom said I went airborne) and I get dragged a few feet in the ditch before stopping him. One of the boys said, "Wow, I would have let go!" The boys decided to go home (and probably tell their parents about the crazy neighbor who catches swamp monsters, err,  runaway Angora bucks. )

Finally mom comes back with my truck and Rocky jumps in as good as any dairy goat. Pop, in he went. Mom and I drag him and his swinging, whacking head over the the pen where his buddy is and I give him some Penicillin (as his head did go under and he was stressed out with all the chasing and running.)

Whew.

Rocky is much better behaved now that he is with his buddy and is not so scared. He even ate a cabbage leaf from my hand yesterday.