The Chicken House Blog

Three little faces and a bike wheel poked through the curtain of willow throngs that acted as the frontier  between us and our posh but very nice neighbours  “What’s wrong with Gert” they were asking having been summoned by the continuous, very vocal and urgent  bleating  emanating  from our normal very quite, very laid back, Gert the goat . “She’s kidding” we told them  “what’s she kidding about” they asked  ( they didn’t say that, but it’s a good line . Rob)  “she’s about to have her baby” I  explained,  in a casual  ‘been there, done that‘ kind of way.   The neighbours were under the illusion I knew something about goat husbandry,  so I choose not to disappoint them. To be honest I was as ignorant on the subject as they were.   Until then the goat kids appeared when I was at work and with the minimal assistance from Cindy who having  seen lambs born from her earliest days at home on her dads farm was  conversant with the ‘critter lady functions’. I on the other hand was as intrigued as they were, . “can we see” they asked, with that ‘you can’t say no’, expression kids practice to perfection.  Having got the nod from Cindy, the kidlets and I took on the status of invited spectators.

 With apparent typical ease and a fair bit of the bleating Gert dropped her kid, and started to clean it off. There was none of that  James Harriett stuff with arms ‘up places’,  no cups of  ‘ot, cocoa Mista Aarriot “ before  driving ‘ome int early hours though the morning mist, to bacon  and a nice bita kidney  (too much telly Pellett) . “It’s a Billy” Cindy announced to  the spectators. To which I made a typically unguarded comment  along  the lines of it being ‘curry fodder’.  As one, the mini neighbours stared at me like I had just declared an interest in pickling kittens  ……. “you can’t EAT him, he’s so cute, can we have him ?”. .  “Oscar can live at our place”, Who the hell is Oscar… the critter had been named  before his mum had removed his womb wrap  ….  “go and ask mum”  the eldest kidlet instructed the youngest,  who wobbled off across the turf on her precious  bike which  wobbled precariously  from side to side with every turn of the pedal testing the stabilizers to near destruction, bike soon abandoned in favoured of running.

We thought this was a bad idea, we said out loud this was bad idea. We told the kidlets this was a bad idea . We told their mum this was a bad idea.  Later that evening we told their dad it was a bad idea.  Their mum and dad agreed this  was not a good  idea ………  and then asked if we would build them a goat ark for Oscar.

 We had however to make one proviso. He had to be ‘seen to’  we were not about to let them take on the potential of a fully entire Billy goat, with no way to vent his needs. And we didn’t want him breaking through and have a conjugal  visit with his own mother. Critter or not there has to be some degree of decorum …..I say .   At least if he had the snip it may keep him a bit docile and de-odorised the beast.  ……( it did me !)

Cindy got her dad to bring over his lamb castration stuff which again I had never seen, and had strange desire to see. . I was expecting some sort of knap sack mounted field hospital or at least a tupperware box with a red cross on it. I wanted masks and medical procedure,  what I got was Stan’s  worst for wear Golden Virginia tobacco tin in which was kept a clutter of  small, thick red rubber bands and plier like tool with three prongs at the action end. With Oscar up ended and clamped ‘deck chair’ fashion between his legs. Stan put a band on the prongs, a squeeze of the handles expanded the ring and with a deft action that decades of practice instils Stan had both Oscars balls in his little sack and the rubber band clamped around the neck of Oscars scrotum. It has to be said that I was in more distress than Oscar.  I felt his pain by some kind of thought osmosis.. I assume he was too young to know the difference because apart from an initial skip and a shaking of this nether region he ran back to Gert and started to suckle. I had a sit down ………no suckling for me!

God bless him, Stan had a succession of  tobacco tins, all for the safe keeping  of various bits of essential kit and his sea fishing tackle. But one tin, like his wallet and his ‘tied  in a knot’, maroon scarf,  was always with him, the tin which housed  his favoured extra strong mints, to which Stan was an  addict.

I have an ever enduring memory of Cindy’s dad, who at first, second and even third glance, would  not have been deemed to be one of natures natural athletes. But I often saw him running across a field with surprising speed and fleet of foot in pursuit of a sheep, or some other wayward critter,  flat cap in hand,  baler twine secured, poo splashed, donkey jacket flaying.  And his one size too big (to allow for winter foot warmers) tractor treaded wellies  ‘flip flopping’.  His progress being heralded by the clearly audible rhythmic clatter  of TREBORS strongest  being rattled and reduced to mint dust,  in a 2oz  ‘backy  tin’ secreted somewhere about Stan’s  person .

 After a few weeks Dill the dog had found and devoured Oscars withered willy  bits. Gert had  persuaded Oscar that suckling was for kids  and he was now too big and too boisterous to be deemed a kid, so he moved next door  ( I had a line here about Nextdoori not Tandoori but I’ll leave that out )

Initially the kidlets thought it great fun to play head butting  with Oscar. But as the neighbours had declined our advice to have him de-budded (freezing the horn buds  so they will not grow) it was soon realised this was a game Oscar was always going to win.

Daily, kidlets mum served Oscar, Michelin rated, washed, peeled and diced vegetables, topped up with goat mix in a washing up bowl size nosh box. Some days I swear  that goat ate better than we did !. Fuelled on his daily ration, plus the constant  ‘workout’ of towing his ark about the plot. Oscar grew into one powerful and magnificent Billy goat. With his flowing white coat , horns of story book proportions,  if ever there  was a classic Billy Goat Gruff , it was Oscar.

Oscar harboured two  passionate hates, Dill the dog and the Postman . Knowing that Oscar was hampered by his tether, Dill was able, and did, ‘goad the goat’ relentlessly. This culminated in one instance when the kidlets, tears flowing,  presented us with  the tip off one of  Oscars ears, which they said  they saw Dill bite off.  The cut was too neat to be a bite rip, we reckon Dill pushed his luck and got in too close, Oscar took the opportunity to try and harpoon the bugger  against the ark, catching the tip of his own ear between the sharp leading edge of a horn and the ark wall, neatly cropped his ear tip.

Oscar needed only to spot Posties  van  to get his hackles up and start to give  chase, literally ploughing his own furrow as the ‘on tow’ ark legs dug into and cleaved the hallowed turf.

We were never to know what the postman did to rouse the wroth  of  Oscar. But his loathing of our dog  was perhaps understandable, considering  Dill had once scoffed his  lunch box !

    Filed under: The Forsham Saga
    by Robert