Leapin' Lizards...

Ok, so it MIGHT not be a "lizard", but the leapin' part sure fits.....

For the past three weeks or so, I have been separating the two Kinder moms from their kids at night.

This, understandably, did not go over well with the two kids....

At first, I just put the two little boys in a separate stall for the night. This was working fine until they discovered that they could sneak around one end and shimmy through a hole. I patched the hole and all was well again....for a few days.

One morning, I came out to the barn and found one of the kids in the stall with his mom. He had - once again - escaped his stall and broke INTO his mom's. So much for THAT mornings milk from mom...

I found that he had pushed his head through the bottom of the gate of his stall until he forced his way out. As for how he got in with mom - that's still a mystery. I have an IDEA, but it's just a theory.

I decided that I'd just pen the two kids in a stall, then let ALL the moms out into a different part of the barn at night. That way, he'd have to get out of his pen, then through another gate to get to mom.

And THIS gate goes almost to the floor, has a full frame, latches tightly, and the mesh is too small to "feed through the fence". I finally had him snookered....at least with emptying mom's tank at night. He was still getting out of his stall, and waiting for me in morning.

Last night, I put everyone to bed and was figuring on heading to the house when I heard some noise coming from the little boy's stall. I looked just in time to see him jump into the hay feeder, then up ON TOP of the stall divider, and tightrope it out to the aisle.

I fixed the little so-and-so by moving a screen partition further over so he couldn't get to the top of the divider. This divider, mind you, is made from a 1x6, and he was running along the EDGE.

I went to the house with confident knowledge that I had solved the problem.

Of course, this morning, he was standing in the aisle, wagging his tail and laughing at me....

I had visions of Bar-B-Q dancing in my head as I reached out to catch the little (expletive deleted). After I caught him, I realized that he'd only make about 8 good sized hamburgers, so I gave him a reprieve. It was tempting though...

I returned him to his stall and proceeded to get the milkers ready to go. I had three of the four milk ladies in the aisle (one of them being his mom), when I turned to get the forth. I checked to make sure the two hooligans were still in their stall, turned my back to open the gate, let the last goat in, then turned back around to see little Mister BBQ sucking on his mom. My back was turned for MAYBE 10 seconds.

I hurriedly latched the gate and "unattached" him from mom. He wasn't too happy about breakfast being interrupted, and let me know about it. He was also bound and determined to FINISH breakfast.

No sooner did his feet hit the floor of his stall, he turned around and JUMPED over the stall fence and into the aisle. He didn't even climb, he just jumped over the fence that is 44" tall - from a standing start.

I grabbed him quick and put him back inside the stall. This time, I stood right there and waited for him to try again, which - sure enough - he did so right away. This time, as he jumped, I put up my hand, palm open, in his flight path. His head and my hand had a mid air collision right above the fence. The shocked look on his face as he landed back in the stall was priceless - he was in NO way expecting to hit something head-on.

I decided that it would be a good idea to milk his mom first...

While this mystery is solved - and easily fixed by adding a board to make the fence taller - I still don't know FOR SURE how he got INTO his mom's pen before.

Although, it's begining to become more evident that he just "flew"....