Ever since we started letting our goats eat oats again, Abigail has been very ornery on the way back to her pasture. She doesn't want to leave those tasty cover crops behind!

Anna got tired of dragging Abigail when she'd lie down and refuse to walk, so we found Lucy's old gentle leader. The harness makes it easy to win the battle of wills with our ornery goat, so now Abigail goes where we want her to.

We change back to a collar after walking to or from the garden, though. Even though the gentle leader doesn't make it impossible for a goat to open her mouth, we figure Abigail might as well be comfortable during her leisure time.

And maybe, as with Lucy, a few weeks training is all it will take before the gentle leader can be retired once again.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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