Goat Therapy

I have always considered goats to be the clowns of the animal kingdom. While they may not have the horse’s power and speed or the dog’s popularity, there is no animal with a better sense of humor than the goat. If the horse is king; then the goat is his court jester. Not a day goes by that one of my goats doesn’t do something to make me laugh. There are a lot of reasons I raise goats, but it would be less than honest not to say that one of the reasons is because I know that every day I put on my boots and head outside to do chores that those goats are going to do something that makes me smile today.

It may be the defiant kid that gets in trouble by his dam only to jump up and “mock” her…right after she turns around and her back is to him; they don’t call them “kids” for nothing. In the springtime the kids run and bounce around the pasture like their legs are made from pogo sticks. "King of the Tree Stump" is a favorite game around here and sometimes a dozen goat kids jump, play and mock head butt each other trying to be the king on top of that old mulberry stump. I can sit outside and watch their antics for hours. Sometimes the adult goats play with the kids, sometimes they just come up to me for a pat and neck scratch. Such as this morning when my dairy goat Dym brought a smile to my face as she likes to use me as a human scratching post, after almost knocking me over she put her long, expressive face up close to mine, looking at me with soft, brown eyes filled with affection...then she promptly cud burped right in my face.

Let's also not forget about the buck goats, those big ‘ol clowns standing at the fence, their tongue sticking out, staring at all the “girls” in the other pasture; not unlike some men, they really make fools out of themselves to try and impress the ladies. Let a doe walk up to the fence and they are pawing the ground, making their wup...wup...wup sound as they stick their tongues out and flap them around. (No, I am not making this up, they really do that!) It is certainly quite hilarious but somehow their strange antics always seem to impress the female goats. In short, no matter how bad of a day I am having I know my goats are going to make me smile, just sitting outside watching them is a great stress reliever. Laugh if you want too, but I bet there are quite a few people that could benefit from some “Goat Therapy” in their lives.