Homestead mailing list

[Marie McHarry <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 8:43 AM,  <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> My comments are not against disbudding as much as it is about the dogmatism
> of caprophiles.  The incidents of which you have been informed are the first
> incidents that I've even heard tell of where a goat injured another with its
> horns.  We hear the prohibition about the goatkeeper or milker being 
> injured with
> horns but have you ever known this to happen?  I haven't and I've been
> rubbing elbows with goat keepers for decades.

I share your feelings about caprophiles.

In my experience, I've observed that goats don't fight like cattle do
by trying to hook the opponent with their horns. They go head to head,
which can lead to copious amounts of gore if you have bucks with scurs
but not to tearing wounds. Horns actually are handy to grab a
reluctant goat.
>
> Let me give comparison of what I'm talking about.  In order to give the big
> dairies in this state a monopoly the distribution of raw milk is illegal.  
> Even
> if you want to say it is for pet food, you have to obtain a pet food license
> and dye the milk blue.

Don't get me started on that fraud! We used to be able to sell milk
privately in Illinois, but that has been outlawed. Of course, that
would be because of all the people dying of goat milk? Of course not.
One of my neighbors who had a fair number of chickens got closed down
by the state for selling eggs and chickens as a sideline (he is a big
cattle guy and kept the chickens because he likes chickens). The only
rotten egg that I've heard of in my life came from the supermarket
where my mother bought eggs when I didn't have any for her. Death by
egg? Not so much that anyone has noticed.


> Like that, most goats I see around here, and there are lots now of days, 
> most
> have their horns (because they are brush goats or meat goats) and I know 
> lots
> of people who milk horned goats.  I've never even heard of anyone being
> injured by a goat's horns.  It's a red herring.  But then again, I've never 
> heard
> of anyone's goats being injured by horns either.    Lot's of incidences of 
> the
> fool things getting their heads caught in fences, but that only means you 
> have
> the wrong type of fence not the wrong type of goat.

Yes, I'm putting in a new hot tape to keep them back from either the
cattle panels or the woven wire. They always seem to get entwined at
midnight on a night when it's raining so hard you can't see where
you're going.
>
> A very long time ago I nearly cut my thumb off on a table saw.  It split the
> thumb from the nail to the joint right down the middle.  It put the fear of
> God in my about power tools.  Since then I have had a meditation any time I 
> am
> around such tools where I visualize a sphere around the business end of the
> tool and I never ... that's never ... put my hand in that sphere.  I've not 
> had
> another accident in lo these many years.

It's pathetic that we humans need such lessons to learn, but -- alas!
-- we always need to. All of us. It won't happen to us until it does.
>
> Farm animals are like that.  A kick from the donkey could kill you right
> there (think Natasha  Richardson), a goat's hoof is far deadlier than its 
> horns,
> and if the 900 lb milk cow suddenly decides to bolt and you are in the way, 
> it
> would be grim.

Cows don't generally do that, though, thankfully. Even the old rip we
had (who milked straight through for nearly a decade without
freshening) could be stopped by a child (me) who kept in front of her
-- and she was onery. Of course, you have to know your animal; I
wouldn't try that with a bull, even an Angus. The one dairy buck I had
who ended up as dog food tried to kill me several times, but he was
using his feet, not his horns. Fortunately, he had horns so my friend
was able to grab him and hold him while I climbed over the fence (she
was safely on the other side). It was something genetic with him; his
son was shaping up badly, and I sold him with a warning.

So like the table saw you visualize the range of the animal's
> danger and you stay the hell out of it.  Period, all the time, world's 
> without
> end, amen.  Never get inside that deadly kick zone, always give the cow a
> better escape route than through you, and do not get your fool head within 
> range
> of the goat horns.

Accidents would never happen if we didn't get tired or careless.
Nevertheless, following the rules (you want to walk behind a donkey,
do it up close and let him know you're there, for example) keeps most
of safe, most of the time.
>
95% of
> what passes for advanced goat knowledge is either pure hallucination or else
> the result interventions needed because of inappropriate conditions in which
> to keep goats.

Same goes for human health care.
>
Cheers,
Marie