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+--- Thread: Goat-O-Rama at the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair (/showthread.php?tid=1557)
Goat-O-Rama at the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair - Nanno - 08-07-2016
Our goats were invited to the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair this year, so Phil and I packed up Finn and Sputnik, the cart, and a few of the younger goats for a petting zoo and headed on over. The boys had their horns wrapped for safety even though neither of them has ever shown the slightest inclination to hit anybody. Those horn tips are right at face level for most of these kids and all it would take is for a goat to turn his head to look at something and a kid could get whacked by mistake. So even though it looks kind of silly, we wrap the horns. Phil also pointed out that wrapping helps with visibility. People notice the colorful horns that would otherwise blend into the background.
Finn got cart duty first and he did a very nice job. Here Phil shows a boy how to hold the reins, which are harmlessly hooked to the neck strap instead of the halter. The kids don't know the difference and they think they're getting to steer and stop.
And they're off! Reins properly held in each hand.
After Finn got tired, Sputnik took over. These girls loved honking the horn.
We brought a small portable pen and put Tigerlily, Oakley, Pedro, and Pepi in it. People could pet the goats over the fence or go into the enclosure one or two at a time and sit on a stool and play with the babies. Pedro and Oakley were especially happy to be the center of attention. Tigerlily, on the other hand, was naughty and had to be tied up at the back. She kept ramming the babies and running them around. I didn't expect this because she's never been mean to babies before, but I realized that she also hasn't been around them without their mothers. "Shame on you, Tigerlily!"
It was a fun day and the goats put smiles on a lot of people's faces. Finn and Sputnik were tired by the end. Each of them pulled kids around for probably about an hour. I don't think they were physically tired, but they were mentally drained from walking up and down the same road again and again. This was their first big event and we had to be careful not to overdo it. We retired them to the trailer as soon as they told us they'd had enough. A few kids were disappointed that we packed up the cart before they had a chance to ride, but we directed them to the baby goat pen because baby goats never fail to turn a frown upside-down. It was a fun event!
RE: Goat-O-Rama at the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair - Taffy - 08-07-2016
What wonderful PR for goats! I'll be you make a lot of "goat converts" doing these events. Poor Tigerlily. I'll bet she was taking out her angst on Pedro and Pepi because she wanted to be out with the Big Boys instead of penned up with the babies!
RE: Goat-O-Rama at the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair - hihobaron - 08-07-2016
Nanno
Good Job at the Fair
Reminds me of Midwest Horse Fair with my RIP Stallion Baron Von Black.
I hope my goat boys here can come close to what your boys are doing.
Good Job
hihobaron
RE: Goat-O-Rama at the Beulah Arts and Crafts Fair - Nanno - 08-06-2017
Phil and I were invited to bring goats to the Beulah Arts & Crafts Fair again this year so we brought Sputnik and the cart. To keep things simple we opted not to bring a whole entourage this time. Besides, Finn has been amusing himself recently by rubbing his body and especially his face all over our bucks, who just came into full stinky rut during the past week. Sputnik has been rubbing them too, but not nearly the extent that Finn has. I felt that Sputnik would probably clean up pretty well with a single bath, but Finn would likely take several washings to get rid of the pungent reek around his head. Sputnik loves to get a bath, so the choice was easy.
We didn't get many photos, but Sputnik was a good boy for most of the afternoon. He began to sulk as the afternoon dragged on and got hot. He couldn't have been tired--the work wasn't that hard--but he felt that the world was not quite fair to him and started balking when I'd lead him off with a fresh batch of kids. We quit soon after that and I let him graze for a while before we went home. And miracle of miracles--we did not get rained on! I must also add that Sputnik seems to genuinely like children. He enjoyed having them come up and pet him after a ride, and he even shook hands with one girl repeatedly despite the fact that he was obviously bored of the trick. He's a good boy.
