Filed under: goats | Tags: difficult goats, fun goats, goats, hoof trimming, stanchion
Yep we need one. Our little goaties have been living it up. No rules, no ties, and no stanchion. That’s right, they’re a year old now and they have no stanchion, and they are not trained to be tied. This makes feet trimming rather hard! When they were wee I could tip em over and would lay them across my body in a full strangle hold, while the doode would then lean over and trim the feet. They actually kind of liked it I think–what kind of interesting game is this?? But then they hit one hundred pounds, and standing on hind legs they’re taller than me! So we needed another plan.
Tonight we trimmed their feet. As you can sense from the above system, it is all still a work in progress and we’re not skilled goat wranglers. We first tried our new routine. One person (me) locks the goat’s neck between their legs while the other person (doode) attempts to straddle the goat’s body and pick up the feet to trim them. Hmmm a good thigh workout? Yikes. Too much for me, I nearly fall over and grab onto doode. We both nearly fall over. Yep need another plan here.
So we tried tying the goat to the fence. Then doode would push the goat next to the fence while the other person (me) would trim the feeties. There’s a lot of pushing and pulling and good goatie-ing, but soon we’re making progress. Of course the other goat (in this case Roppongi) is nearby and thinks this is the most unusual and interesting thing she’s ever seen. She’s sure that she could do a better job. There’s my head, hovering above goat’s hoof, with a goat face right next to me overseeing the business. Pongo, move it, I can’t see! She seemed to think I might do a better job seeing without my glasses–and took them off for me. She’s so helpful. Sigh.
Here are some possible plans for our own goat stand, handy ones take note!! Here. And here (this one has a nice locking mechanism). The official variety retails for 300.00! At some of the farm shows we’ve seen the added convenience of these. One guy had wheels on his stanchion, and he could pick up the one end and wheel the goat around–that’s one solution for an ornery goat.
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