You're a man now, Jasper Jules, and it's time you did a man's work.

[didgery]

Jasper Jules, my Saanen whether, pulling in his very first load of wood with his homemade nylon harness and a converted $80 Home Depot garden cart.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=516217&l=17c928f5dd&id=1058283407

[didgery]

P.S.

I do realize that he's not really a man. Not since that incident with the vet and the scalpel. I like to think, however, that he doesn't realize he's missing something.

[2ndyrgal]

What a lovely boy!

[didgery]

Thanks. He was our first baby born at home (we've had four additional babies since he was born) and I just love him. I enjoy taking him for rides in the car (he sits like a person in the passenger seat, and we go get drive-through bagels). He's about 16 months old now.

[Renae]

What a handsome and handy goat! :cool:

[lisae]

We've brought a calf home sitting in the front seat, and another time, a goat nanny in the back of a Sentra two door sedan. We got some good double takes on that one!

He's quite handsome. Did it take a lot to train him, or is that a thread I missed?

[Puddin Pie]

He looks very proud of himself in that picture!

[twofatponies]

He's quite handsome. Did it take a lot to train him, or is that a thread I missed?

My question too! Wow, that is cool. I've seen old photos of goat-pulled carts to give children rides in Central Park (I think it was Central Park). Are they not spooky or skittish? I always think of goats as somewhat flighty.

That's a great picture.

They make harness for goats???

[didgery]

Thanks for the props, guys! He is a cutie.

Jasper is not really trained to drive yet; he's just trained to pull. He's still working on gaining confidence in harness (pulling an empty cart still makes him a bit jittery, since he's a little on the skittish side and the noise can be excessive) but a little work a couple of times per week has been good for his confidence. I'd like to train him to walk, trot, gee, haw, etc. so that I can actually RIDE in the cart, but he's not a natural like his mother. He's a long way off from his first parade.

One nice thing about driving goats is the feeling that a spooking/bolting/runaway goat could be easily stopped. Makes it easier to move forward with a goat like J.J., who really does a great job most of the time but who would probably intimidate me with his occasional nervousness if he were a 1000 lb horse!

Jasper's dam Missy is a BRILLIANT harness goat. She came from a commercial milk herd (had never seen a cart) and she started pulling like she'd done it all her life the first time I hitched her up. She walks, whoas, steers by sidepull/halter, and pulls up and down hill with her harness and breeching. I feel very comfortable putting my kids in the cart and driving down the road with her, which I can't say for J.J.!

I made my harness out of old polo wraps and seat belt straps. It's pretty functional but they make MUCH nicer products that are commercially available in the $200 range. I think I paid about $5 for hardware for mine, so at least it has that going for it!

[didgery]

Jasper's mother Missy modeling the same harness and cart:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=161867&l=b89eff4394&id=1058283407

Missy is better than words can describe - bold, confident, sassy, curious, brilliant, mischievous and unflappable. She is a fantastic animal, and particularly suited to driving. She's also been giving a gallon of milk a day for over 16 months straight and, not having been bred for this year, has also recently adopted a rejected doeling from her herdmate. She's a dear.