The door bell just rang
 

And there were 3 guys asking if my goats were for sale. I have ZERO issue with people eating goats - none whatsoever. But we don't live on a main road and the road we are on is very short. Who's out cruising around for goats? Surely to goodness they aren't just hoping to take one home tonight for a New Years Day meal?

Are goats often stolen? I directed them to a guy up the highway who sells Boers and told them about a weekly auction that has tons of goats coming and going all year round.

I want a locked gate at the top of the driveway.

Scary Pretty Paisley!
Did you get their license plate number? Might be worth warning the neighbors if they're out cruising for trouble.

This is probably TMI...Last spring I had a yearling ND doe (blue-eyed) come up missing. A few days later, we found her...but her head was completely missing above her shoulders.

About a week later, there was a large rain storm. The neighbor down stream called and asked if we were missing a white goat or calf (I was thinking...I know these are not farm folks but who couldn't tell a goat from a calf?). I told them no but that DH would come over and help them identify it. When he came back, he said it was a calf (not ours) but that the identity was an issue because....it had no head above the shoulders. Is anyone seeing a trend here?

The answer is Yes. People steal goats and calves for food (and other reasons, obviously). I put up 3 more outside cameras where I can see the road (dead-end gravel) because I want to have something to identify when I point my .410 at it.:cowboy:

And, as they say on the PFI (local western store) commercials..."And I'm not kiddin'!"

What in the world would they want with the heads of these animals? At least they should be eaten and not discarded!

The guys were Hispanic; I know that they often eat goat ... I would be way more concerned if they were white boys as I'm fairly certain goat is not high on their favorite foods list.

We need a lock on the barn - and real guard dogs. Or LGD bark all night long so how would I know it was someone stealing goats instead of a normal night time noises ?

If they were stalking your place for your goats or otherwise, they wouldn't have came to your doorstep, rang your doorbell and let you glimpse their faces. Hispanics are among the number one customers for goat - and they may not be able to read well enough or are so migrant that they do not know where to go for an auction. If english is an issue, another reason to ask personally, rather than visit an auction. Also, they may have their own personal reasons for staying out of the public. If you see them lurking around again, then yes - be wary. Otherwise, be cautious. When we lived in Arizona, we regularly had people come to the door asking if our old El Camino was for sale.

- two cents

That's so weird!

But I have to share a funny story. We went up to a guy's house asking if we could rent a goat. He looked at us really suspiciously and asked if what we wanted to do was legal. We explained to him that we were actually from a Baptist church on a retreat for the youth workers and we wanted to play a joke on one of the girls. Seems she was told the reason she was large chested was because she had been given goats milk as a baby. :hysterical: So we wanted to just put a goat in her room when she came back from lunch. The guy was great and gave us a baby with a bottle - and what a laugh we got! Then we all enjoyed feeding the baby her bottle and bringing her back. We had her for all of 2 hours but she was so cute! My kids were young and really enjoyed playing with her. :) Ahh - great goat memories. :D

Were they foreign? In this area there is a huge market for meat goats from middle eastern people. They do go around country areas looking for goat meat. They will slaughter right on your property, clean up, and use every part of the animal. They are actually very respectful of the animals because they waste nothing. But it isn't unsual for them to be looking for meat goats.
The Latinos also look for goats, but you see them more at auctions and sales than going around the country area. If you have a lot of farms or homes around your region that do have goats, it is possible that it was just people looking for goat meat. It is also possible that they were asking around who had goats, and someone pointed out your property? I believe the people around here are the mostly the muslims in the area that are looking for goat, but I'm not sure of the significance. They are respectful though. I personally respect the fact that they waste nothing and clean up after themselves.

It sounds pretty innocent to me. I don't live in a place visible from the road at all, but I have had plenty of people ask me if I had any goats to eat when they found out I had goats, or if they came to get a lamb. Since I have dairy goats, I don't normally raise up the bucklings for sale-once you figure in all the costs and losses in milk, it's not worth it for the prices people want to pay (or not pay)...but if I did there is certainly a market for them.

I would guess it was a case of mistaken address. It is nice to have a gate at the driveway though (weather or not you use it). We've had people try to deliver cows among other things to us that were actually looking for the neighbor's place.

Shannon, I don't blame you for feeling a bit gun shy on this. A freind was advertising homing pigeons on CL and had a few people calling and offering to drive 2 hours to just purchase a few (he does not have proven flying stock). Some people in his pigeon club told him to be wary as it has happened that a few were purchased so that the buyer could check out the coop, then sneek back at night to steal all the birds.

I feel for you. I recently started advertising meat goat kids, and get simply paranoid at the thought of someone coming to steal my herd...

Shannon for your piece of mind get yourself a couple of LGDs. We lost a customer because he is afraid of them. Oh well.
And I agree with others here, in your case they had the decentcy to come a knockin.
Sure they bark. And they have teeth. But NO ONE, NOTHING messes with their goats.
Matter of fact we have to be very careful during loading. Only one friend is allowed in with goats who the dogs know.
They know one customer's truck & go ballistic even when he is at a family's home about a 1000 feet up the road.

Well I wasn't advertising goats for sale. At all. What's so odd is that they were in an older SUV, three of them, it rained all day today and only one spoke English well enough to have a conversation, and it seemed to me they were driving around looking for people who had goats to see if they had any for sale. They were scoping out farms with goats! To eat! I know it doesn't matter to them that my goats are dairy goats but it matters to me! Also a reminder - I'll bring the goats in the garage when TSHTF. Cows, too.

They said they weren't from around the area but they were about 25 miles from home if they are from where they said they were. No doubt in my mind they were looking for goats for dinner.

We have to Great Pryns and they do know who belongs here and who doesn't but I've never seen them aggressive towards a person-though I've always accompanied any "stranger" to the barn. The man who built the barn made a comment that they were really good at knowing who belongs here and who doesn't so I assumed he was making a comment about his coming to check things out when I wasn't home. :)

I did get the English speaking guy's phone number - he offered it when I told him I would be happy to contact him in spring after the bucklings were born. Not as if you could find a guy by this cell number if you had to .....

Shannon - I don't blame you for being nervous about this. There were some goat thefts in my area last year but I haven't heard anything recently. And the others are probably right - if they were looking to steal from you they wouldn't have knocked on the door - hopefully. Thieves aren't always the sharpest knives in the drawer. I would still keep a very close eye on things for a while and maybe mention to a neighbor that NO ONE should be loading up goats but you!

Oooh....good idea about talking to the neighbors! Thanks!

I think I understand where you are coming from Shannon. We used to get a few Hispanics stopping for meat kids. They stayed on the road and one fella spoke English. We passed a kid over the fence and he passed the money back to us. Paid for each goat as it went over the fence. But...

One time a handful stopped to ask about kids. I said I had a few for sale. He said they would go get a trailer and be back in a day or two. Yeah, well..one guy came back with a trailer. He came to the porch..I went outside and he started talking. He was flat out drunk. I told him he was not taking the kids when he was drunk. He grabbed my hand and shoved a few hundred in it and said "we had a deal". I threw the money in his face hopped up the steps and told him to leave..now. He started to argue..I told him he had 10 seconds to make it to his truck or I'd pull a gun on him.

The door opened just then and hubby stepped out and asked what was going on. Guy got scared and left. But he was mad and threw gravel as he was leaving. Glad he didn't hit the fence.

I stopped selling meat goats off the farm. Those kids went to the auction..I get as good if not better money and I don't have to deal with people like that jerk.

We do have gates at the road. If things get really bad..the padlocks will go on. I'm like Gena..more cameras will also go up around here. No trespassing signs at the road may or may-not help.

When I used to go hiking with pack goats, I transported my goats in a wooden crate with wire sides in the back of my truck.

The city people would pull up along side and take pictures.

The country people would pull up along side, motion for me to roll down the windows, and then ask if the goats were for sale!

As far as people approaching the house -- it happens all the time and I've made a lot of sales that way. I'm pretty far out, and at the end of a dead end road, but when I ask how they found my place the answer is usually pretty innocent. Examples: Doing housework for a neighbor, knowing a previous customer, related to a neighbor or migrant workers renting a nearby house. One guy was going door to door buying scrap metal and looking for yard work and he bought a buck from me for a BBQ for his daughter's birthday.

(And he bought several old appliances, too. He made my day -- saved me from having to haul them off for a few $ and I respect anyone who's willing to work that hard to make a living!)

I've yet to have a problem ... I do have noisy dogs that discourage visitors from actually entering the yard. (I joke my doorbell has four legs.)

People stop by my place all the time asking if I have goats for sale. It's funny, really.

Mainly, it is Hispanics that will just stop and knock, although the occasional Caucasian will ask about 4-H goats. If I put up an ad for bucklings, it is 90% Muslims who will answer my ad.

African Americans have never stopped out of the blue, OR answered my ads, but they will get in touch with me through a mutual friend. Once was a gentleman who goes to my goat club, had a relative interested in dairies. One lady got my number from my mother when she answered HER ad about some quilting machines. They got to chatting, and it turned out that she had just bought a couple of acres and was thinking about goats. My mother, of course, knew the PERFECT person for her to talk to about that. :D

I am with another poster; if it were me, since it was Hispanics, I would not be worried. But that is because I get SO many of them that stop and ask about my goats...mainly for BBQ. (Although I HAVE had a couple ask about dairy goats. If Hispanics *know* dairy goats, they REALLY know them. Not once have they failed to ask if my very best doe was for sale, first and foremost. One Hispanic neighbor lady asked if she could milk them and I agreed....WOW was she *fast*! I thought ~I~ was quick, but she milked like lightening!)

Not to freak anyone out, but goat head soup is a delicacy and tradition in several cultures.

In Greece it is called Mayiritsa (μαγειρίτσα) but they always have it on Easter.

I don't care if they eat the goats-just not mine! And I had no idea about the soup. Shameful they wouldn't eat the entire animal but I guess if they waited for it to get big enough to eat the entire thing they would need a bigger pot for the head.

After I tossed and turned last night I got up and moved the cars to up the driveway to the fence to prevent anybody from driving to the barn. Then I turned on the lights around the house and in the upstairs room that faces the barn-which is acutally unfinished and storage for now. SO got up long before dawn and thought someone had stolen the cars! Got a stern finger wag for that-and was told flat out that my idea of blocking the driveway would not stop a goat thief. But all were accounted for this morning-and now that the loft is quickly emptying of hay I may just make a spot up there for me. If I can sleep in the pasture with my cow I can sleep in the barn with my goats!

we live a hour away from town, out in the middle of no where on a dead end road which is dirt and every so often we get people who come down just "looking" creepying down are road :hrm:........once we had a truck (as we where leaving) Turn into are drive going past are open gate....we quickly turned the car around and rushed to are gate to find "them" backing out of are property...puzzled and a little upset we asked "Can we help you???" the reply was "oh yes we have been here 3 times before i wanted to know if you have any goats for sale??" .....And now we keep the gate closed....Cant wait for the day we get a automatic gate.

These thing have happened to me also... and it can be creepy, especially if "things" have been going on in the area.

Still, J and I are looking for a small farm to buy, and if we see a realtor sign on a place we are passing, we will slow down and look at it.... If we see people around and it looks like something we would be interested in, we might stop in and ask them (politely) If we could ask them questions about it. We raise rabbits, and we have stopped a time or two at places where we see others raising them, introduce ourselves, and see if they are interested in talking about theirs. I know I have had people do the same thing with me. Truthfully, I always worry that I will come home a day or two after their visit and all my rabbits will be gone.

Regrettably, the paranoia seems to be justified more often these days than a few years back.

Having no goats of my own, I would love to find someone close buy with a "clean" looking goat herd that I could get to meet. I would be glad to volunteer labor to get some "hands on" experience in raising them. I guess if they didn't know me as a neighbor before then, it might make them a bit nervous if I cruised up their drive and started asking them about goats.

People definitely have varying views on what the norm is. A while back somebody came to our house, noticing we had ducks and goats, and asked if we were interested in a trade. A couple ducks for their goat. That little whether was pretty tastey. And I hated those ducks.

On the other hand, their culture might see that as perfectly acceptable. My mother has a guatemalan friend who will drive 115 miles the day my mother's cow calves, just to milk the colostrum so she can make a certain recipe.
:shrug:

I personally wouldn't be worried. Sounds like they were driving around looking to buy a meat goat, so they stopped at every place they thought had goats. No big deal. I doubt he would have given you his phone number if he was shady. How else are they supposed to find goats for sale if they aren't familiar with auctions and craigslist? :-)

Once a Hispanic lady stopped to ask if I had any roosters for sale. I didn't, but told her to come back in a few months because by then they'd be ready. I sold her roosters for $5 each. She stopped by once more asking if I had any, and I told her I didn't. I wish I'd gotten her number because I would love to have her come by every 6 mos or so and buy the unwanted roos.

I know how you feel PP. We got a new fridge for the garage and was going to donate the old one to our church. I put the old one behind our garage and covered it with a huge tarp. I came home one day and it was gone. My daughter said that a man drove up as she and her boyfriend where out in the yard playing with the dogs. He asked about the fridge and if we wanted to get rid of it. They said yeah and he took it, and my tarp.

Now the round in front of my house is 50 MPH. Being a wooded lot you can only catch a glimpse of my house from the road. So how did this guy know I had an old fridge behind my garage under a tarp?

Yep, getting ready to totally fence in this property, plant some nice black berries all around the fence line and get two nice little German Shepherds.

I wouldn't be worried either.
Now, my property is fenced and gated, and while I have no LGDs (I can't stand pyrs and their constant barking) all my dogs will "greet" any car that pulls up - loudly.
Even so I have people stop all the time and ask if I'll sell some chickens, ducks, eggs, the old clunker that hasn't moved for a while - and definitely goats!! They either want brush goats and will make a lowball offer for every goat on the place (to which I always answer, No thanks, but there's an auction in ___ on <weekday> that should have some at that price)
or they are pretty goat knowledgeable and looking for a dairy doe and want to buy my Honeysuckle, in which case I give them Susie's number and we chat a bit.
When I had pigs, people would ask about pigs.

I really wouldn't worry about folks who come to the door and ask. The only ones that worry me are the ones who drive by slowly and startle when they see me. And any dog helps. I make a big show of calling mine off and putting them in the house.

When I was raising Boer goats, it was common to have Hispanics stop in and it was a great way to sell my culls and extra bucks. Even the ones that had my cell phone# seldom called first. They told me buying from a farm was perferred, as they have the same concern with auction as most, disease and not knowing what drugs have been given recently.
That being said, a lady down the road had a group stop and she told them she had no goats for sale, the next week her goats (kids 4-H projects) were stolen and she suspects it may have been the group she refused to sell to earlier.