The Short Lived Farm Warming Present - Part I

The horses were moved onto to the horse property, now that it was ready for them.  Once they inspected their new surroundings, they quickly settled in and felt at home.

We knew a local farmer, who was also a friend of ours.  Once we had moved our horses onto our farm, he said he had a farm warming present for us.  (It is somewhat like a house warming present.)  Can anyone guess what that may have been?  Give up?  It was a young billy goat. . . . . with horns.

As any youngster would be, he was into anything and everything.  I guess he was only acting like a goat would.

I fed the horses in the run-in shed.  Since there were no dividers between each of the horses to keep them separated, I tied them to their designated spots and hung their feed buckets in front of them.  I would stay with them until they finished eating, then release them one at a time.  Billy the goat would be right there with them . . . . eating from their feed buckets even after I had fed him his food.  It was quite a chore trying to keep him out.

It got to the point that when I was dishing up the feed to place into the individual feed buckets, Billy would charge me from behind.  The first time he did that to me, he caught me completely off guard.  OUCH!!!!  I went flying face first.  I was a bit sore and not happy about it.  

Since our house had not been built yet on the property, I had to commute to the farm daily at least twice a day to feed and care for the horses and the goat.  Fortunately, I only lived about 10 minutes away.  A few of my neighbors were nice enough to keep watch of the animals and the farm during my absence.  That included a couple of neighbor boys, who were nice enough to throw hay to the horses for me in the middle of the day.

The one summer evening, I fed and cared for the animals, then left for home after a long day.  Just as I walked in the door, my husband came up to me and informed me that I needed to get back to the farm.  The father of the neighbor boys called and said something about a dead goat.  WHAT??????  I just left the farm and all was good and everyone was alive.

Before heading up to the farm, I brought a shovel and a trash bag with me, just to be prepared.  Thought it would be a good idea.  Then back up to the farm I went.  As I approached the paddock area where the run-in shed was, the neighbor boys and their father met me.  They said they moved the goat into the run-in shed so he was out of the way of the horses.  I  walked into the shed, and lo and behold, there was the goat, laying on the shed floor, stiff as a board.  Yep, it certainly was not alive anymore.

How did this happen?  And within the 10 minutes that it took me to get home from the farm.  You'll have to stay tuned for my next post to find out and see what happened after that.