Fainting Goats at Foggy Oak Farm

♪ Foggy Oak Farm, Foggy Oak Farm♪♪ Come on down to, Foggy Oak Farm ♪- Hi friends, welcome to Foggy Oak Fairytales. Each week, we'll bring you a new story. Some weeks, we'll share a story based on what's been happening on our real-life Foggy Oak Farm, where we have all sorts of animals and adventures. Other weeks, we'll use our imaginations and create new adventures together. I'm so glad you're here. This week, we have a story about bringing fainting goats to Foggy Oak Farm. A couple of springs ago, we brought home three fainting goats, a mom and her two babies.

We learned that while they do faint when they are startled or excited, it doesn't stop them from running things. Let's learn about these interesting ungulates and how they went from the new kids on the block to the bosses of all the sheep and goats on the farm. A couple of years ago in the early spring, we decided we wanted to try fainting goats on the farm. Have you heard of fainting goats? They are a type of goat that, when startled or excited, may appear to faint. This happens due to a condition called myotonia congenita which is a genetic disorder that causes their muscles to stiffen when they are surprised or excited.

It doesn't hurt them and they don't actually faint, but when this happens, they can get so stiff that they fall over. They still know what's happening around them, but these spells last for a few seconds, and then the goats are back to normal. We wanted to try fainting goats because they are known for being friendly and are great at helping clear out the kinds of plants that sheep don't like to eat when they graze. Goats are, in general, great browsers, which means they'll eat weeds, brambles, and other plants that sheep won't enjoy.

They like a variety of plants, and they really like treats like fruit and livestock grains, though they can do very well without them, because goats are extremely hearty creatures. Since we hadn't had goats for a while, our pasture really needed some goats to help us manage the kinds of plants that sheep were ignoring. And we knew that we wanted young kids, which are baby goats, who would grow up here and integrate comfortably with our flock of sheep. We also thought it would be easier on the babies if we brought their mother with them, to keep them from feeling separated and help them settle in faster.

And that was how we ended up with clover, flower, and acorn. We saw farm advertising the trio, a petite black and white mother with curving brown horns, a brown and white girl and a black and white boy, both babies with the nubs of what would eventually become horns like their mothers, and we went to visit them. The babies were small and sweet, not yet weaned, which means they were still nursing from their mom, and their mom was caring for them very affectionately and expertly. She had several sets of twins before.

We didn't need to spend more time considering. We loaded them into a livestock kennel in the back of our Subaru, and off we went to introduce them to the farm. When introducing new livestock to a farm, it's generally good practice to keep the new animals separated from the rest of the flock. This is both to give them time to adjust to one another in a safe way and to make sure that the new animals are healthy and won't bring an illness to the rest of the flock. So that's what we did. The three goats who our daughters quickly named clover for the mom, acorn for the boy, and flower for the girl were penned into the pasture off the barn, which gave them access to lush spring browsing and a safe and cozy stall to go into at night.

The new goats could hear and see the sheep who came curiously to the fence when they heard those babies"maa" eating at their mom when we carried them to the pasture, but they could not intermingle. Clover was curious and explored the barn stalls and the pasture with her babies. When the sheep gave her an inquisitive "baaa" Clover looked at them and stamped her foot. She wasn't sure about the sheep, which were at least two times her size and much more than two times the size of her young kids. Now from the car ride to our farm to the introduction to the barn and the pasture and even to meeting the sheep, we hadn't yet seen any sign that Clover or her babies were actually fainting goats.

They seemed like any other kind of goat, but the former owners had given us registration papers if we wanted to register the babies and that's something you can do with livestock and other animals like dogs that certifies they are a specific breed and registers them with a breed association. So we felt confident that they were fainting goats, but there was no real evidence of that yet. We took it as a good sign that they were feeling comfortable at the farm. However, the next morning when my kids went out to spend some time with the new additions, I heard a shout of "Mom, Mom, the goats!"

Coming from the barn. I ran to the stall where I found my daughters who were now sitting with the flower and a corn in their laps. "What was wrong? Everything seems fine," I said to them. "Mom, when we opened the stall door, both flower and a corn fell over," my older daughter explained. "Are they okay? Should we take them to the vet?" I laughed. "Okay, no, I'm sorry, you were scared, they're fine." Remember when I told you these were fainting goats? That's what it means. I guess they really are fainting goats after all.

The babies were already back to normal and Clover was unconcernately munching on plants outside the stall. Aside from the surprise my kid has had experienced, all was well. I admit though, the first time it happens to you is a bit shocking. When I went out to feed the chickens and give the goats a treat that afternoon, I too opened the stall door, not thinking anything of it, and I found all three in the process of falling flat on their sides and onto the ground with a gentle "thump." I jumped a bit, and then I laughed as they shook it off and rided themselves.

The babies immediately ran to Clover to nurse. Evidently, everyone in my family needed to make more noise when we opened the stall door if we didn't want to startle them and have this fainting experience. When the goats and sheep had been separated for long enough that we were confident the goats were all healthy and everyone had had a chance to see, smell, and interact with one another at a distance. We decided it was time to open the gate and let the goats out to explore and meet the sheep for real.

In the days leading up to the integration, the sheep had taken to spending long stretches of the day, grazing by the fence so they could gogal at the new additions anyway. So we figured it would be fine. On a Saturday morning, we got a bucket of treats and we led Clover, who wanted those treats, and her babies out of the barn pasture and into the big pasture, which is on the other side of the barn, where the sheep were grazing and the chickens and ducks were hunting for bugs in the cool spring morning.

We spread the treat out on the ground and Clover immediately ran to it and began munching away happily. The babies sniffed at it, but were still mostly nursing and didn't do more than take a nibble or two. Hearing the feed bucket rattling with the sweet feed contained within, the sheep all let out a mwah, mwah, of excitement and came bounding over the field to us. These sheep typically don't move fast, but when they hear that treat bucket rattle, they put on some speed. However, as they came running towards us, they saw Clover.

Clover saw them. They stopped. Clover stamped her foot. They regarded one another wearily. One of our friendly sheep, Sugar Cookie, broke the day taunt. He stepped forward towards me asking for a head scratch. As I gave him scratches and paths on his head, he and Clover gently touched noses. Clover snorted and stomped again, turning and walking off towards a black walnut tree with her babies. Well, it looks like that went well. We said to one another. We watched the sheep amble forward to get some sweet feed and we watched Acorn and Flower begin a riotous game of King on the hill on an old stump near Clover.

Flower would jump up on the stump and shake her head taunting Acorn. Acorn would then get her running start and jump onto the stump as well, quickly pushing his sister off. They went back and forth with this game for some time while Clover laid down in the sun and kept a gentle eye on them. The sheep who had finished their treat were curious about those playing babies and moved closer to inspect them. Acorn took one look at the gigantic hulk of a sheep stepping towards him and froze up. He didn't fall over this time but his back leg seized up and he looked at Clover with a plaintiff,"Mah!"

Clover didn't seem overly worried but she did get up and walk over to him. As soon as he unfroze, he dashed to her and began frantically nursing. In a few days, the sheep and goats had it sorted out. Clover went from keeping her babies hundreds of feet away from the sheep and refusing to interact to grazing with them from sun up to sun down. The babies lost their fear of the much larger sheep and would try to tease them into playing with them. The sheep who don't tend to be terribly playful once they are grown up weren't interested in playing but were very welcoming and kind to the babies.

They seemed fascinated by their energy and antics. Within a couple of weeks, Clover, in fact, was fully running the show. She was first for treats and demanded a wide berth. If a sheep dared to come within a few feet of her and the babies during treat time, Clover would "Mah!" Angrily put her head down and give the sheep a firm but with her head. She was the boss. She took a leadership position on walks, leading the way to where she wanted to graze. The sheep were content to follow her and accepted her as the new head of the flock.

In addition to establishing herself as the top dog of the ungulates on the farm, which means hoved mammals, Clover quickly proved what her former owner had told us. She was an incredible mother. She kept close watch on her babies while still allowing them the freedom to roam and play and she nursed them well past the age I'd ever seen a goat or sheep nurse a baby. A corn and flour had developed a system where any time they were upset or startled, as soon as they recovered, they would go and nurse to calm down.

It was certainly effective, but it got a little ridiculous looking after a while. While most goats would wean their babies sometime between six to eight weeks, maybe three or four months at the outside, A corn and flour were happily nursing up until they were close to a year old. Something would startle them. They'd freeze up, then they'd bolt over to Clover,"Mah!" in as they nursed. But they were too tall to nurse standing up. They were as tall as Clover at that point, so they'd have to kneel down on the ground to get to her utter to nurse.

It was a system that worked for them, I suppose. We soon saw that even with the addition of the fainting goats, we had too much brush to be tackled. A friend's niece raised Nubian in goats, which are another extremely friendly and sociable goat breed, and she had kids available. Well, why not? We added two more goats to the flock, sunshine and cloud. Sunshine was dark brown with black streaks, but had an absolutely charming disposition. She loved being petted and having her head scratched and would gladly follow us around and cuddle from day one.

Cloud, on the other hand, was white with brown spots, and while she was not mean, she was nervous about everything and rather standoffish. We followed the same procedure we had with Clover and her babies. We kept them separate, we let them all get to know one another and make sure they were healthy, and then we allowed them to integrate. But oh, those babies saw each other and they wanted to play. They'd bound and jump and try to play next to the fence with one another. When we let them all meet, the kids immediately formed a pack and began racing off to play King of the Hill on a pile of logs near the barn.

Clover was kind to the new babies and she ensured that they also respected her position as matriarch of the flock. We soon were reminded that even as goats get older, they remain more playful than sheep. While Clover herself was never terribly carefree, which I suspect was part of her boss goat persona, all four of the babies continued to love racing, jumping up onto hay bales and pushing one another off, and any other kind of jumping, running, and playing dynamic you can think of. When we added two adult relatives from Sunshine and Clouds' former home, a huge brown and white male known as Buddy, and a petite, brown, black and white female called Twig, who looked very similar to Sunshine and is probably related.

The gang just got more rambunctious and fun. Bover once again ensured that the new additions knew she was the boss, especially at treat time, and all was well as far as she was concerned. While the sheep and goats sometimes do think separately, although you'll almost never find the goat separated from one another, there is one sheep, a giant black male with one horn, who prefers the goats to the rest of the sheep. If you go out in the pasture at any given time, the odds are good that you'll find five sheep grazing or laying in the sun together, and the goats offer to distance in the woods, munching on one thing or another.

And with them, almost always, is the sheep who seems to think he is a goat. I mentioned that sheep aren't as playful in their grown-up years as goats, and that also extends to mischievousness. Sheep make it out occasionally, but by and large, they are very docile, and they don't have a particular urge to escape or look for other pastures. This is not true for goats. They say, if you build a fence that will hold water, it will hold a goat. And what that means is they are escape artists. If they can find a way to get out and go sample flowers in your garden or eat your apple trees, they will.

And such is certainly the case with our current herd of seven. This week alone, I went out to give the chicken some scraps from the kitchen, and I found the goats in the yard eating one of our trees. I yelled at them and I chased them back to the pasture where they had somehow managed to open the gate wide enough to slip through. I was very pleased with myself for getting them back in so easily, and I went back inside thinking nothing more of it. Except that, when I went out later that afternoon to give the chickens their normal meal, I found the big black sheep, happily grazing in the barnyard.

I should have known that if the goats got out, he would figure out a way to get out too. So less and learned. If the goats are out, I'm not done putting everyone back until I make sure that sheep is in the pasture too. The other mischief that goats can get up to, if they have horns, is getting their heads stuck in the fence. This morning when I was having coffee, I heard a plaintive "meh!" coming from the pasture over and over again. I popped outside to see what was going on, and sure enough, I found flour with her head fully wedged through the fence, trying to eat a bush on the other side.

If you haven't had the dubious pleasure of trying to fit a goat's head back through a fence, let me tell you, odds are good, you're going to smush your fingers in the process. You have to get them to move forward through the fence again enough that you can tilt their head and slip one horn out and then the other. But it's never that simple. The goat usually doesn't care for being stuck or for you moving its head around to get it out, so they thrash their head around and fight you the entire time, which often ends up smashing your fingers into the wire of the fence.

It's like solving a puzzle to get both horns out and not hook one on a different line of wire as you navigate them out. And then, as soon as it's over, they shake their head and they walk away as if they had never been stuck with absolutely no indication of gratitude whatsoever and worse, having learned nothing. I'm sure I will be working flour out of the fence again another day this week. Still, they're fun and funny. Sometimes they'll run with you if you go for a jog in the pasture and they love exploring with my daughters, following them into the woods to browse while the girls play.

And sure, you can always startle a corn, flour, and clover into freezing up by accidentally talking too loudly or opening a gate near them, but it does keep life interesting. We've achieved a nice dynamic in the flock between the goats and the sheep, and I can always count on those goats to help maintain the pastures while providing a laugh. The end. Remember, you're part of the story too. What did you think of this story? What did you imagine when you were listening? We'd love to hear your part of the story.

If you and your grownup want, you can share your thoughts or a picture you drew with our Foggy Oak podcast family. You might find it easiest to share with us on Facebook at Foggy Oak Farm. But we have lots of options on our website, foggyoakfairytales.com. You can also check out pictures from the farm and learn more about us. Thanks for being part of this story, and I hope you'll join us next week. (piano music)(piano music)(gentle piano music)

Swoon! Fainting Goats at Foggy Oak Farm 🐐 | A Funny Farm Story for Kids

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