Grrrr-oats

Have you guys ever seen any of those funny goat videos on youtube?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL6Ws4i07is

Or the famous fainting goats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ-evIW6_0U

Those are a type of goats that when they are stressed, their muscles all tense up, causing them to "faint" as their whole body stiffens up.

Unfortunately during the semester's farm practicals, we didn't have the opportunity to look at goats, take care of the goats etc. We did cover how to handle the goats and manage the goats as part of our curriculum.

Goats are quite hardy and don't need much care.
There are goat breeds that are good for :

• Meat - Goat curry any one? I've had Goat Briyani here in Sydney, it was YUUMMMYYY
• Milk - Back home in Singapore, it was quite common for people who are lactose intolerant to order goats milk. Some family prefer to give goats milk to young kids as well. The milk is also used to make goats cheese
• Fibre - did you know that the Mohair yarn comes from the Angora goat? (http://www.hobbyfarms.com/crafts-and-nature/angora-goats-14912.aspx)

Basically there is a pretty good industry for hobby farmers to have a few goats. Even if you don't sell much of the 'produce' if you keep milk goats, you can trade goat milk with friends. There isn't that much demand in Australia for mainstream farms to go and rear goats full time but some farms have 'sideline' of goats to complement their farm.

We had a great lecturer who told us how to care for goats, give us his own experience of keeping goats and honestly if I had a small farm, I would be keen to keep a couple of goats myself (well in all honesty, I may rent some and see if it suits me or not).

Something that I did come across while surfing pinterest is that Google in San Francisco used to rent goats to 'mow' their lawns.

Links from their Google blog:

• https://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.html
• https://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/goats-are-baaaahk.html

There hasn't been updates on the blog if they have continued this practise in the next few years and I haven't found anything on the internet that say they do but honestly this is a great idea to start off for companies with a large compound which needs to be mowed. The cost (according to the Google site) is similar to lawnmowers but the carbon footprint is much lower.  I think that Google has set a great example and more companies should look to doing this.

If you have any examples of other companies doing this, feel free to put a comment. :)

Examinations and more examinations

Most people don't realise how much Veterinarians have to study for in order to be a vet.

We study as much if not more than Doctors in a sense that we need to study and learn about a whole group of animals as compared to just the Homo sapien.

This isn't to say Doctors don't study hard or Vets are better but just that the general public tends to underestimate how much work is required or how much studying is required just to be a Vet.

I'm at the end of my first year in my Animal BioScience degree (this is the Bachelor Pre-Vet degree) which is still critical since my grades determine if I do get accepted into the Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine later on.

Grousing aside. There are a number of pre-vet courses that needs to be undertaken such as Chemistry, Basic Biology, Cell Biology and we cover Animal Management (hence the numerous vet practicals).

It is exam season and I think everyone is stressed out but generally there isn't an atmosphere of competition amongst us but rather a sense of camaraderie since we are all in this together and we will be classmates for 6 years together. Its nice since some folks willingly send out notes or helpful hints.

Next time you go to the Vet or see Vet students studying, do appreciate how much work they have done to be where they are or how much they are struggling to be where they want to be. This is the same for all jobs and all profession, a bit more appreciation on the work that everyone does goes a long way :)