On the Wrong Side of the Fence

This morning, John looked out the window and said, "We have goats in the yard."

Now this is not an unusual occurance. Anyone who owns goats could tell you that they are escape artists. Our Misho (white goat -- half LaMancha and half African Boer) is famous for getting out. He lays on the ground near the fence and sticks his head out into the yard to munch grass. As he munches, he wriggles out farther and farther to get to the longer grass. At some point, he is then outside the fence.

When the goats get out they don't go far, so we just go out there and put them back in. So this morning it was not a big deal that they were out. Then John says "Well, they went back in. They must have knocked down the barricade near the shed."

So I go and look out another window, and I see Divna is also out.

A goat being out is one thing, a horse getting out is quite another.

Here she is, on the wrong side of the fence.

Zora was having a meltdown.

She is the Alpha Animal of our little critter family, and for Divna to be out while she was still in the pasture was completely unacceptable. She was running around, kicking, calling out, throwing her head....just making a spectacle of herself! She had the goats terrified! All this tough acting was a result of her being too afraid to go past the stuff laying around in the "escape area." If she was really a tough girl, she would have been outside too.

It was easy enough to get Divna back in the pasture -- she was hungry. All I had to do was come out and act like I was going to feed them, put a lead rope around her neck, and there she was....back in the pasture safe and sound.

John got to work on re-barricading the area. This should keep them in until he can get some proper fencing up.

I gave them some hay to comfort them after the trauma. Something happened with this batch of hay we got from the nearby farmer. Someone must have had a birthday party outside near the hay field. We have found a lot of balloons in the flakes of hay. This scares me --- looks like it could clog up a horse digestive tract in a big way.....

And later in the day they were all laying down out in the pasture, getting some sun and relaxing.

The goats had been laying down, too, but as soon as I got out there with the camera they jumped up....too bad, it would have been a neat picture with all four of them napping.

I LOVE my animals!!!!