Monday 25 May 2015

The tale of a goat and a London taxi


I mentioned in passing on my Animal Manoeuvres blog that Maddie the goat was in the way.  Maddie came to us unexpectedly at the end of last year having been abandoned locally.  We took her in with 2 ideas of her future: one idea was to fatten her up for the freezer and the second idea was to breed from her.  Maddie must have realised our first plan though as she never put any weight on being the fussiest goat I have ever met.  Oh well, we could always fall back on plan B and breed for her.  

However last week when we let the pigs out in the field next to her we found a problem we had not thought of, namely that Maddie was trying to "play" with the piglets through the fencing. Actually for play read the words head butt!!  The situation was made worse by the piglets trying to play head butt her back.  Her fencing was designed to keep in ducks not head butting goats/piglets and it was getting damaged to the point that it was going to break pretty soon. So the piglets were moved to another pen well away from her and we made the decision that it might be easier to find Maddie a new home. We have no other pen suitable for her and and we need the field next to her for the pigs.

With heavy heart (we have become very fond of her) I placed an advert up on a local expat forum and was thinking about putting up another one on LeBonCoin (a French ebay type site) when the phone rang and Maddie had already found a new home. She was off to a couple who had some ducks off us earlier in the year and keep a large menagerie of animals for pets, rather than the freezer ... so she'll be free to put on weight if she wants!

We arranged for Maddie to head off to her new home on Friday.  I assumed she would maybe head off in a trailer or at least the back of a 4x4 but I was wrong on both counts.  No, Maddie left in the back of ......


A LONDON BLACK CAB!!





Do you think I might be safe in saying this is possibly a first for Normandy?  A goat in a taxi?  What do you think?  Have you any tales of odd ways of transporting animals or have you transported something just as odd in a taxi?

ANIMALTALES

12 comments :

  1. Farewell Maddie! So surreal to see he go in a black cab!

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    1. It was - I also know that where she went the couple have an alpaca. Now I really would LOVE to have seen an alpaca in a taxi!

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  2. Sylvia (my 7 year old daughter) and I just read your fabulous story. We thought it was very funny to have a London cab in France. Before we got a car we used to use taxi's a lot..to help carry our groceries...but we have never transported an animal or anything funny in a taxi. Sylvia wants you to know that Yoda enjoyed listening to the story too!

    Angela xx

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    1. Ha ha - I never really thought about the black cab being in the wrong country as I was too busy thinking about Maddie travelling in the back of it.

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  3. Well, I can save I've never seen that before. Glad she's found a new home. Hope the meter wasn't running.

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  4. oh my, love it, that goat doesn't do things by halves

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  5. lol ... what a funny tale. Shame she was abadoned and sad she didn't get along with the piglets. Hope she's happy in her new home and that she gets along with the other animals there. What a ride she must have had, in a London cab in France :-). #AnimalTales

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  6. You can tell that black cab isn't in London as a London cabbie definitely wouldn't let a goat in the back!

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  7. That's hilarious. I bet it's a first!! 😂

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  8. Hi Rosie, how funny! I hope she tipped the driver! It's a shame you had to get rid of her, but at least she now has a new home and a taxi on hand to take her where ever she wants whenever she wants!

    xx

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  9. I'm pleased to hear Maddie is going to such a lovely home.

    As for strangest vehicle arrangements, how about a snake in a fish tank by ambulance?

    Over here you aren't allowed to kill snakes and you have to call to have them taken away. When my cat brought one in on a Saturday morning we put it into a small empty fish tank and the (very poisonous) snake was taken away by a guy who was terrified it was going to escape. It wasn't his normal job to transport snakes, normally he dealt with cats and dogs and drove the pet ambulance. Parks and Wildlife are responsible for snakes but they aren't open on weekends. I'm ever so pleased I convinced the RSPCA to take the snake off our hands and give it over to Parks & Wildlife on Monday.

    My cat was find btw, the snake played dead until it was in the tank.

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