GOATS WITH HORNS
It has always been my belief that goats with horns are a little like men with cowboy hats. Take away those cowboy hats and how many fearless gunslingers would turn into wussy bare-headed, balding dorks?
Seriously. Give this some thought. Who would have been afraid of Wyatt Earp, the Lone Ranger, or Zorro, if they went around with nothing more on their heads than some hair slicked back with a dab of Brylcreme?
I may have written a bit of this before at some time, so excuse any redundancy.. I'm getting too old and senile to remember what I've written on DAR over the past 2 or 3 years or so, but this morning, I got to thinking about goat horns and I just felt like writing about some of my observations on the matter.
Now, for those who don't know much about them, goat horns are right up there with samurai swords and pirate cutlasses in the "dangerous weapon" category. In fact, they are doubly so, because they almost always come in pairs.. like those short Ninja swords with the handgrips that allow you to spin them at high speed. In fact, that's probably just about the closest man-made weaponry that I can come up with. Because, let me tell you, when you see an infuriated goat wielding a rack of 2 foot long, sharp, curving horns.... Well, mister, you don't stay around to find out what exactly he or she intends to do with them. Nope. You just run like hell for the nearest safe haven.
You see, I got to thinking on this whole subject this morning after reading a story about some oryx in New Mexico that have taken over a state park and had to be air-lifted out at great expense. They couldn't be herded out as their horns are so vicious that they can barely be handled. Yep, it's true. In fact, they have to be individually tranquilized, have their horns covered in specially made covers, and be airlifted by helicopter into a nearby army target range where hunters can shoot them as fair game. This story goes into great detail about the procedure and the great expense for those who are curious enough to want to read about it:
Message 16980341
Now, I read the story and it immediately made me think of goat horns and how incredibly dangerous they can be, and how differently goats behave when they still have them. I say *still* because most serious goat breeders burn off the little place which horns grow from when a goat is just a couple of days old. Yes... crude and awful sounding, but in the long run, it's well worth doing for many reasons, one of which is safety, and the other being for the sake of maintaining law and order in the Animal Kingdom. Because, make no mistake, there is no doubt in my mind that goats with horns grow up with an "attitude".
You see, I've got some experience with such things, having kept a large herd of goats for a couple of decades. True, most of my goats went through life, never having known the great joy of having a two-foot long set of spear-like accoutrements on the tops of their heads. But I've had more than my share of encounters with horns...yeppers.
Many is the time that I would get a phone call from someone who owned a couple of goats and wanted to drop by to breed one of them to one of my purebred bucks. I would agree, but forget to ask that all-important question, "Do your goats have horns?" Invariably, a little while later, a truck would pull into the yard and as I walked along by the truck cap, I'd take a look in the window and yep, there would be a goat with a big wicked-looking rack of horns waving around on the other side of the plexiglass. And I'd think, "Oh, boy, this is gonna be fun."
We'd unload the goat in the yard and I'd say, "Uhm... nice set of horns on your goat. Don't you find that they're a bit of a NUISANCE and kind of DANGEROUS??!!!!" The owners would usually make up a few excuses about how goat horns are more "natural" and that they think they are more distinguished and elegant-looking and that the goats need them for purposes of "self-defense".
"SELF-DEFENSE!!!!"
Now, seriously. When is the last time that a goat needed a set of horns for self-defense? Let me tell you something about goats. They have heads that are so boney and hard that you could use them for battering rams to knock down a brick wall. My dogs have all been very respectful of those boney heads and are quick to back down as soon as they see a goat eyeing them with that glint of evil intent in their eyes that means, "Scram!! Vamoose!! Pronto... before I send you flying over the fence!!"
Nope. Goats don't need horns for self-defense, but maybe they need them for other practical reasons. Yes, a case can be made that they need them as high-tech back-scratchers...which, indeed, they do use them for when so equipped. But that just illustrates one of the points which I will soon make about goat horns, and that is, that goats know all there is to know about using them as "tools" and even as "weapons" (which are just a glorified, violent form of tool). Yep, you need only watch a goat turn around and carefully bend its 2-foot long blades back to scratch this EXACT LITTLE ITCHY SPOT on the boney point of its butt, or between its front pair of toes to know that it is quite well aware of PRECISELY where the most extreme point is spatially located, and PRECISELY how much pressure to apply to that patch of flesh without incurring pain or damage. Goat horns are a true marvel of engineering, and goats are most expert in making use of them... For, just as they can so carefully scratch between their toes... so can they give you a well-aimed poke in that soft place in the back of your knee, or a more purposeful stab in the butt if they don't like the way things are being done at milking time. ANd yep, I have been stabbed in the butt by one or two goats in my time... Mostly by goats that people have brought over to breed to my bucks.
And, now there's another important point. Remember what I was saying earlier about horns being like cowboy hats? Well, goats think so too. I kid you not!. When goats with horns appear on the scene, goats without horns make themselves scarce rather INSTANTLY. Just ask any of my bucks about this.
Yep. Normal buck reaction to seeing the arrival of a visiting female is to snort and strut around, spray their beards with urine (yah...I know...you *really* didn't need to know that, but for the sake of accuracy in reportage, I thought I'd include that little detail). They then push and clamber against the front of their pens as they ogle the new arrival in great anticipation of the (possibly) impending great event. But when a horned female goat waltzes down the alleyway looking like she owns the place and isn't gonna take crap from ANYONE, you can just see those lecherous buck eyes flicker with sudden trepidation . Yessir...that air of excitement now turns to nervous anxiety over the distinct possibility that the only kind of action that anyone might be getting is a sharp stab in the butt (or some infinitely more sensitive spot). And yes, we take a lot of precautions in such circumstances.. So much so, that it's generally ME that ends up getting stabbed in the butt or the back of the knee.
Anyhow, as I said, goat horns are marvellous inventions. Take it from me. Goats are big on invention and technical adaptation. I've seen them in action, and from what I know of all of this, I now know that man isn't as smart as he likes to make out. Nope. He STOLE the idea of making swords and crowbars and levers from GOATS!! It's true. They already invented all of this stuff a loooonnnnggggg long time ago.. back in the Dawn of Time. While man was still going around trying to spear a fish with a little stick, the wily goats had learned how to sharpen the curved front edges of their horns on rocks or hard trees to make them NICE AND SHARP...the better to hack down tasty bushes or force their way through dense brush. And when the Egyptians and the Romans were trying to figure out how to move big chunks of rocks around...who do you think they got the idea of leverage from, eh? Yep. They just watched some goats using their horns to rip apart any kind of wooden fence in a few minutes by using their horns as crowbars.
See, I learned this by process of experience here at the farm, the year that I left the horns on a small group of goats that were going to a farm up in a remote area where there was a lot of trouble with coyotes and bears. I soon learned that where it might have taken Leonardo a couple of months to perfect the design and use of the crowbar... Well, it only took those young goats a few short weeks to realize that their horns could be used quite efficiently for ripping planks off of feeders or tearing fronts off of stalls so that they could raid the feed room whenever the desire struck them. And bold!! Let me tell you about BOLD! When I would come into the barn and find them ripping at feed bags with their horns as the grain spilled out through several great rents in the sack cloth, they would back away for a second with that "Oh, oh!! I think she's gonna spank us!!" look in their eyes, but a couple of seconds later, they would start slowly tilting their heads from side to side giving me that, "Just try it, Lady!!" look.
Yep. Goats with horns. Forget about training guard dogs. Just stick a couple of nasty-tempered horned goats out in your front yard and you'll have all the protection you need, as well as a nicely trimmed lawn... but uh-oh... forget about having any trees... you should see what they'll do to them with their horns. Not a pretty sight..no, indeed, it isn't..
(Just for you Jfred... hee hee...)
Croc |
