Escape from Alcatraz

Despite the bitter cold of low twenties over the night, this afternoon (which is my morning) was filled with warm sunshine.  With two night shifts down and one more shift to go tonight, I am a little weary.  The animals, with no obvious concern of my exhaustion level, decided to continue with their escape from Alcatraz campaign that has been the theme this week.

For the last several days, Houidini has been a ring leader in assisting everyone to escape from their safe, large, plenty to do in there pen.  Pigs are the fourth smartest animal in the world, so they say, and I can definitely see why.  There are a few weak spots in the fencing we used.  Our fence was put up in a bit of a hurry so we just used cattle panels staked into the ground and secured on the trees.  Houidini has been able to inevitably discover every possible weak spot and rout his way under them.  This in turn leads Ladybug out, which then attracts Buster (our professional escape goat) to creep down on his knees and flatten his body against the ground and slide under the fence panel.  This bends up the cattle fencing big enough for the larger goats, Bo and Luke, to join the escapades.  Our goat No-Name is much to fat to escape this way, so he is usually stuck cheering loudly from inside the fence.

This morning when I awoke, everyone had escaped.  The pigs were casually munching grass in the yard, while the goats were continuing their tirade in the chicken coop.  The water had been knocked off the hanger, the feed had been turned over and devoured and the ground nesting boxes disheveled and moved around.  Luckily, our animals have never wandered.  They seem to sense the fact they have it very easy here on the homestead.  Since our animals have a food drive the size of Texas, it merely takes a shake of feed for the goats, chickens and pigs to come running.  I can easily lure them back into the pen, which is a blessing.  After sufficiently barricading the hole in the fence with rocks, wood panels, and an old chicken waterer stand, I am hoping this will survive until at least tomorrow when my husband gets home to fix it.

The pigs and the goats are now happily munching on corn securely (at least for now) in their pen.

Until next time…