Fainting Goats

Fainting Goats
Fainting Goats

Does your child need a goat for their 4-H project, or do you just like goats?   Need a yard or lot or pasture cleared out of unsightly weeds?  Are you interested in raising rare, unusual, funny, colorful, small animals that don't take up much space or require much feed or much time to care for?   An animal that more often than not leaves people asking... what is a fainting goat???   Do you like to be around things, that, no matter how dreadful your day has been spending time watching them frolic and play will always make you smile and lighten your mood?   How about milk, do you like milk, or sometimes need a supplement milk replacer for a baby that mother cannot raise?  Goat milk is not only very nutritious, but is an excellent replacer, and if you've ever been in a situation where you have had to buy some, you know how costly it can be.   If you can answer YES to any of these questions, then maybe fainting goats would perhaps be the next animal you would choose to own!

The most common story about their origin seems to be that in the later part of the 1800's; a mysterious old man came to Marshall County, Tennessee, bringing with him a sacred cow and four goats which exhibited a strange habit of fainting when startled.   A Dr. Mayberry purchased the goats for a total sum of $36.   From those four goats taken to Tennessee by this old man, were the first of a line that later flourished throughout the state.   Heavily muscled, the goats were prized for their meat, and were easily kept, because they did not have climbing abilities typical of other goats.   The trait of them collapsing into a "faint" led to their becoming an endangered species in the later 1970's, when an influx of coyotes in Tennessee made easy prey on the fainting goats.   It is now estimated that about 3,000 tainting goats inhabit the United States.