Hungry (but fussy) Goats

It’s raining. The chickens have heads of cabbage to keep them busy and full. The goats hate to get wet. They’re stuck inside and bored. I have one of their favorite foods in my fridge’s vegetable bin – Italian flat leaf parsley. I thought I’d be nice to them and feed it to them instead of cooking with it. I carefully made my way out to the barn. I have to stomp through the snow because the shoveled path is too slippery. The boys look delighted to see me. I offer the parsley. They sniff, but, they don’t even nibble. It’s wilted! They look quizzically at me. Why would I be showing them this worthless stuff? Don’t I know that if it’s hangs limp, that it’s inedible? They think, “that goat maid is well-meaning but none too bright.” I get them some hay.

caper eating hay

They might be fussy, but they are polite. Caper thanks me.

I feed the parsley to the rabbit. Candy says that it’s delicious. There’s no mushy spots and the color is a nice, deep green. What do those silly goats, know, anyway?

Comments:

  1. I’ve actually had that happen with the chickens. They’ve done that with fresh bouquets of their favorite weeds. Last winter I bought them fresh collard greens once because they looked so great in the store…maybe there’s a learning curve with new food, but they snubbed them. I know the first time I gave them a cabbage, they didn’t know what it was and it scared them so badly they were bouncing off of each other and the walls. *sigh*

    It was rainy and ugly here in Wisconsin, too. Your boys are so adorable.

    • LOL Jenny, the first time I gave my hens a head of cabbage I got the same reaction. I just kind of toss it into the coop. You would have thought I just drop a 30 pound raccoon in the middle of them. They flew up on to the roosts as fast as they could and a couple hours later when I went out they were still on the roosts!!!!

      • Very funny, Ken! We’ve had a lot of “30 pound raccoon” moments with the girls!

  2. The story is fun. It seems that the snow melted a bit and the temperature rose. Does the weather will improve?

  3. I have picky hens too. They’d rather eat the corn scratch than any fresh greens. I like to give them fresh spinach or parsley- eventually they’ll eat it, but not without some amount of pestering around the corn scratch tub. Sometimes I make a big batch of brown rice- which they love.