Caerwyn the goat has been eating separately from the rest of the sanctuary animals for the two years since his arrival at three weeks old. (See the earlier posts about him for why this was necessary.) As happens in journeys of healing, a new stage suddenly arrived. On May 22, he followed the other animals out to the pasture where they eat their breakfast instead of staying in the area where I fill a feeder just for him. I was about to close the gate to the other pasture when he appeared there and waited. “Really?” I said. “Are you sure?” There is a certain amount of jockeying for position that goes on amongst the many small piles of hay spread out for the donkeys, horse, goats (big with big horns!), and sheep. He didn’t turn around and go back to his food, so I walked with him out to where the others were and set a pile for him a little ways away from them.
Caerwyn ate breakfast with them for the next two days and I saw that he had reached a new stage. So I opened all the inner gates around the barn and house and let everyone be together. At first, I stayed to make sure no one pushed him around, but gradually I saw that he could move away when he needed to, so I went back to my work and just checked on him periodically. On one of these checks, I found him eating from the same branch in companionable chewing with his goat brothers, Joyful and Baerwyn.
I now regularly find them lying together on the cement slab in front of the garage. This was a favorite sunning spot for Joyful and Baerwyn, but they’ve had no access to it since Caerwyn’s arrival because he lived in the area around the house while they roamed the rest of the ten acres. Now they can do all of that together.
Caerwyn goes farther every day. This morning I found him in the woods in the fenced section next to the one by the house. He was happily chewing on some twigs. Yes, goats eat wood, as do donkeys.
