If any of you have a sibling or 2, you can relate to this. If you have or had a toddler or 2 in your life, you can relate to this. If you just like all things equal for all people, you can relate to this.
Well, what is it? Goats. Yep. Goats. Let me explain. All of my goats are basically toddlers. They ages range from almost a year to 8 years old. I basically run a daycare for goats. My job as the head honcho of the goat daycare is to make sure that everyone has what they need. Need, key word. They may want more grain, more hay, cookies, a good butt scratch or just some attention.
The problem with all toddlers is that they always want what their neighbor has. They can't help it. It's just human nature. Or in my case, goat nature. Let's say I give Mazy some extra grain. Just a handful. No big deal, right? Wrong. Even behind the door the others know what's going on. They start to feel left out. Soon cries of, "Hey!! That's not fair! Where's mine?" are bleated all over the premises.
Soon a frenzy akin to a Shark Week episode ensues. A mob of goats surrounds me. All of them wanting to see what was given to the "Special Goat, Mazy". (In all fairness, Mazy is very special to me. She does get babied the most.) Today the treat was, brace yourself, a vitamin C pill. Yep. Not the yummy ones that taste like oranges. A big hosre-pill swallow type. That's it. I had to use a what is called a pill-baller to give it to Mazy. Basically a syringe of sorts that holds a pill that you can easily put into an animal's throat so they can't: A. Bite you. & B. Spit it back out.
Soon I found myself passing out vitamin C pills to a bunch of unknowing goats. If I would give them individually, nobody wants them . It ends up as a wrestling match between me and whichever goat I deem needs an immune boost. Not so with the mob mentality. Everyone was more than willing to have 1 given to them. My fingers got bit a couple times mistakenly in the turmoil. I found it hysterical that nobody wanted the pill, to everybody needed a pill! Some even got 2. I didn't tell Mazy that the 2nd pill was the same as the 1st pill that she didn't want.
Sidenote: In case you didn't know, Vitamin C is water-soluble. That means your body will take what it can use then get rid of the excess out through urine. You really can't overdose on it. That's why I wasn't concerned about some of them having 2 pills.
To make it even better, I refilled the free-choice mineral dish while I was down there. The girls get a choice of whether or not they want some minerals. Remember that goats require a lot of minerals? They get minerals in their feed, but not all goats require the same amount of minerals. Hence, the free-choice feeder. I made the mistake of replacing the mineral dish with a different container.
Ok. Let's stop here for a moment. There is also minerals in the back of the barn. Mercedes' barn. Ok. It's not that Mercedes has her own barn. She just thinks she does. So I make sure that there are other mineral locations available. Like in the "little girls' pen". Everyone can go in there. It's just what we call it.
I started walking back to the pen with the "New" mineral pan, only to be intercepted by Bevie Honey & Violet. I let them see into the pan, & they start to lick the minerals. That garnered interest from the rest of the gang. I hurried towards the pen only to be blocked by all the girls. I put the pan on the on box that fat Lucy tries to sleep in.
Now, these are the same minerals that were in the other bucket & in the barn. Nothing different. Just the mentality. "Wait, wait, wait. What is SHE eating that I"M not? Move over, sister. Mine!" Do you remember that scene from Finding Nemo with the seagulls screaming, "Mine! Mine! Mine!"? Yeah, that's what was happening.