From Rimrock to the
Ozarks

Goatlady and those Wonderful Kids

1999

153 goats (half of them rescues) and 7 dogs – enough straw to bed them all down, 20 water buckets to be filled at individual stops along the way and 40 bales of hay to make a trip across 6 states – MY WAY – SLOW – so I could follow directly behind the semi, and with a stop for checking everyone every 2 hours.
Here’s our story…
Well.. We made it FINALLY..
Like to
thought we never would… there for awhile.. it was quite a trip to say the
least.
We ended up leaving a day later than we had planned.. the mechanic had
JUST gotten to Matt’s truck..it had been in the shop for 3 weeks
and the day
we were supposed to leave he went in to check and they were JUST putting the
transmission in..
but they did manage to put 4 tires on it in those 3 weeks..
*L*
I had only gotten my van back the day before.. not bad for a total of
about $4500.00 for both vehicles.. HA!
Live and learn I guess.. but if the
cars ran good that was my main concern

We used a local Livestock Hauling
company- Wingfield Livestock Haulers out of Buckeye AZ.. the owner put his
brother on the job..Who had his wife as a companion driver.. little did they know I MEANT it when I said we were going to take this slow and stop every couple hours to check the goats – they were not happy but for my money – and it was not cheap mind you – it was how I wanted it. This way I would know right away if any of the goats was having an issue and could deal with it immediately.
This was a double deck trailer so I had the boys on top (about 30 of them) and there was a secondary compartment that fit a few goats up toward the nose of the trailer – this was sectioned off and held closed by a wall , this is where I put Baby Girl (she wasn’t yet a year old) and her twin sister and mama along with a couple older gentle goats.

The idea, I was told by Dr Houston, was to give them as much room to move around as I could – instead of packing them in like they do cattle. We used cattle panels along the window openings because they were small enough the smaller goats could maybe jump out if they got scared – or if they had their head in the opening it could break a neck if the truck took a quick move. The upper deck openings were above where the goat could reach.
The 5 gal water buckets were stacked where we could get to them on the rest stops and fill for water breaks – no open water buckets in case someone were to get pitched in head first and drown.
I was pleasantly surprised that there was quite a bit of room for everyone to wander around and not be crowded as this ended up to be a 4 day trek.
The dogs were in what was called the “doghouse” upper rear of the trailer, and they traveled just fine (they were also checked watered and fed along the way) – Next to that is where all the hay was stored except what was being fed during the trip.
The rig got to our place at 5am Thurs July 8th..
not
knowing just how huge this thing was..

I thought it would have no problems
getting into the place..WRONG!
It got hung up in a wash..so we decided to
walk each goat out to the truck…WRONG again..

 it
wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t been scared by the sound of the truck
and the ramp.. BUT….
Then to load the 40 bales of hay I made sure to
have so they would have what they were used to eating when they got to their new home and not just suddenly getting new hay …we had 6 bales of left over straw after bedding the truck..the neighbor
got that *S*
 

Then Everyone’s finally loaded and ready to go..pouring rain
by then.. at 5:05pm

The Mobile home got sold and was leaving out at the same time…
WHY
NOT?..*LOL*

Here we all were.. FINALLY ready to roll..
We got all the way
to the gate before my van broke down.. lost the alternator belt leaving my
driveway..
The only reason I knew this was cause my windshield wipers
stopped..in the pouring rain…

3 miles down the road.. spent an hour and a
half fixing it.. the mechanic decided it didn’t need the spacer in the
alternator.. Hmmmm