a gentle place

Posted By Harry on May 25, 2011

BlingBling is a goat that most would consider did not need rescuing. She had a home. She had access to food and water. She even had her own little shelter.

BlingBling

But then most would look past the fact that her first five years of life were spent at the end of a rope. She was never free to roam beyond the narrow boundaries that rope enforced. Most would look past the fact the her diet too was limited by what grew within that small robe-restricted patch. Or, if she really stretched and strained, just beyond it. Moved to a new patch only when ‘the job’ had been completed. Most would not consider her social nature, and realise that she had no caprine company. It was only a rope that followed her around. Most would not see that her shelter did not provide much shelter at all; a tiny, corrugated iron, A-frame structure plonked somewhere in her patch that provided protection from rain, hail and snowdrops, but not from what accompanied them. She could not seek that warm spot, that cool spot, that spot where the wind was not gusting right through that A-frame unless, per chance, that spot happened to be within reach of that rope knotted firmly onto her collar. BlingBling was not ‘abused’ – she was considered part of the family, a normal everyday family that felt she was getting all that she needed. They simply put her to work as a brushcutter. A lawnmower. A biological control agent.

Annie died a horrible death. Pulpy kidney is not something you want to witness more than once. Yet in her death she focussed a light on BlingBling. No longer could we drive past and see BlingBling alone with her rope. On her rope. And do nothing …

Annie

Queen Sally is lonely, said Sue. BlingBling’s lonely too.

How about Blingy coming to live with us and you can visit her any time you like?

BlingBling joined Queen Sally the following day.

BlingBling shortly after arrival at Avondale

New arrivals to Avondale always bring with them a mixture of joy and anxiety. Will they get on with the others? Will they get out? (And, if goats, how often?!) Remember not to change their diet too quick. BlingBling did not disappoint: she got out and, long past nightfall, I found her next door munching around our neighbour’s house. Feet firmly planted whenever I tried to coax her home she refused to move and it took the ute being driven to where she was and Sue and I lifting her into the back to bring her back to Avondale. But she settled in quicker than I thought with her and Queen Sally becoming mates almost immediately.

Over the next few months she gradually put on weight (expected, she was fairly ribby when she arrived) and as she did so the most dramatic change became evident; snow-white when she arrived and as we’d known her for the previous five years, she began developing colour. As her nutrition improved and she was able to forage for and browse whatever her body required, her previously dormant colours appeared and increased in intensity. This was no snow-white goat. This was an undernourished goat that was finally able to seek out all the nutrition she required. And it was showing in a burst of colour.

BlingBling 18 months after arrival

Blingy’s colour has remained. And unfortunately so has her appetite – Billy-Phar never gets to eat alone and Blingy’s weight is now at the excessive end. But that we can, and will, manage. She has two caprine friends, Queen Sally and Timmy, her equine dinner companion, Billy, and a whole host of other Avondalians to keep her company. She has whatever shelter she chooses, and a multitude of patches to spend her time in, large patches which are bordered by fences that goats such as she simply go under or through. BlingBling still has a collar – with a name tag just in case she does wander outside of Avondale. But that old rope is nowhere to be seen.

Categories: Animals & us
Tags: Goats, Horses, Nutrition, Shelter, Tethering