I came home around 1 PM after running out on my lunch break to pick up the groceries, stop at the always required home depot to return some items and pick up some more and get our dry cleaning and a few items for my husbands birthday on the 3rd. I always lock the goats up while I am gone to make my life easier. For one they try to run into the garage to sneak feed when I leave and two, so I do not run them over. My sister had one of her goats accidentally get run over and she passed away, so I am ultra cautious about this.
I actually, recently broke the passengers side mirror off of our truck because I saw the goats run in and I was more worried about where they were than my actual vehicle. Thankfully, none of my goats were injured and one of our friends gave us a replacement mirror for our truck for free and my loving husband replaced it for me. That taught me a lesson to lock the goats up in the barn before I leave and let them out when I come back. I left the lights on in the barn and everyone was happy and healthy when I left. Fast forward to an hour of me running around our little town doing errands. I pulled the truck into the garage and headed up to the barn to let the goats back out to enjoy the retaliative warm weather. This is where I had the absolute shock of my life! Ivy was laying on the hay above the stanchion with her head flat out and her eyes open, she looked dead to me. I ran to her and screamed IVY! IVY! and she didn't move. I thought for sure she had somehow fallen and broken her neck and died while I was gone. My mind began to race about how I was going to explain this to my husband and what had occurred, when I got up and close to her screaming in desperation, she popped her head up and looked at me like I was an absolute lunatic. She started chewing her cud, and I made her get up and checked her all over. She seemed to be completely fine, but my adrenaline was pumping for a good half an hour after this happened and I wondered to myself.... did she do that to trick me and scare me? (all of you know Ivy is an incredibly smart goat if you read my blog) Or was she just really tired and comfortable in a deep sleep since the weather is so unseasonably warm? Have any of you ever experienced a goat sleeping with their eyes open? For now everything seems happy and at peace on our homestead... but it really goes to show you that life can change in an instant and you need to make the most out of every day that you have available to you no matter if you are a human or a goat! Happy Goating everyone!
