Farm News 12-17-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 46°

Sally and the Geese

Sally is a nice young goat, Lucy's daughter, born late last winter. She is what horse people call a 'bay', dark mahogany brown body with black stockings, black tail, and a black strip down her neck. What differentiates her from a bay horse is that she has long, floppy, silver ears. She is currently about three months pregnant, which, her being a goat, means she has about two months left before she kids. Currently she is very round, sleek, and as pretty as a young goat can be.

When Sally was still a tiny baby her mother used to park her near the nest of Beth, the oldest of the female geese. Beth is quite congenial for a goose and didn't seem to object to baby sitting. Now that she is almost grown, Sally still likes geese, likes them a lot, in fact.

The pasture is chewed down to almost nothing. The goats have plenty of hay, and geese will eat a little hay, but geese mostly want green grass. So, I decided to turn the geese out during the day and let them graze on the lawn, where there is still plenty of nice green grass.

Sally decided to join them. That blasted goat has figured out that it is safe to go through an electric fence as long as no foot touches the ground. She picks her spot and then leaps between the wires, often brushing the top wire with her back, and receiving no shock because she isn't grounded. Once out, she joins her goose friends and they all have a merry time eating grass. At least the geese eat grass; Sally is currently in the process of eating all the catkins on the Contorted Filbert, my favorite small tree.

It appears that the only way to keep Sally in the pasture is to improve the fence. The standard farmer joke is that pigs require water-tight fencing and for goats it must be air-tight as well. Ordinary field fencing, the kind that has six inch or so squares, doesn't work well for goats because they stick their heads through the fence; like all grazers they think the grass on the other side is greener and, like most horned animals, once they stick their heads through they can't get them out again. The solution is to use field fencing and two hot wires. The upper hot wire runs about ten inches above the top of the field fencing and the other is mounted on stand-offs about a foot above the ground and six inches into the pasture from the field fence. The upper wire discourages them from jumping and the lower one discourages them from sticking their heads through the field fencing.

Electric fences also discourage dogs. Most dogs, in fact, having once been bit, will never again approach an electric fence. Goats, on the other hand, will be escaping within two weeks after a fence is turned off. Sally has now taken the next step, she is 'fence-smart'; she knows more about how to deal with a fence than a goat should.

It is time to take the first step in building the new fence: hire a teenager to do the work.

Bunnies

Suzette's bunnies began coming out of the nest box on Thursday. They don't seem to be too good at getting back in the nest box, yet, but that will quickly improve.

A Reader Writes


The weirdo who always uses red print centered on the line has written again, this time on Zeno's paradox.

In discussing Zeno's paradox in a math

class, our math professor mentioned that

while, in Theory, the athlete would never cross

the finish line, he would be close enough "for all

practical purposes," and as another example of the

concept, asked the students to imagine that all the boys

in class would line up against one wall, and the girls against

the opposite wall, and at each signal, the girls and boys would

half the distance between them; and while, theoretically, they would

never actually 'meet,' within a relatively few number of moves, they would

be "close enough for all practical purposes."

Blogger doesn't let me retain the centering and red print. Too bad.

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