With all the strife and chaos happening in the world, this might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back… or maybe the goat’s back? In what is normally a pretty quiet residential neighborhood on the western side of Boise, Idaho, dozens of goats suddenly descended without warning on Friday morning. There were “at least 100,” according to KTVB reporter Joe Parris. Their mission? Still unknown.
Photo: Joe Parris/Twitter
A Hundred Escaped Goats Laid Siege to a Boise Neighborhood Today
Here is a live look at #Boise Goat-a-Paloza 2018 pic.twitter.com/RTZR6bWsRP
— Joe Parris (@KTVBJoe) August 3, 2018
While the scene certainly looks pretty amusing on social media, the affected Boise residents weren’t impressed. The goats stripped rose bushes, ate ivy off trees, and grazed on lawn grass, moving from yard to yard. Basically, they laid siege to the neighborhood. Whether this was a coordinated Animal Farm-esque attack or simply a random occurrence remains to be seen.
Thankfully, authorities arrived shortly to squash the goat uprising. Parris notes that while at first police showed up with one truck, they immediately realized it wouldn’t be enough and called for backup. The goats had infiltrated the neighborhood so thoroughly, and in such great numbers, they would not be easily contained.
Party is over “kids”! Loose goats have been cornered and loaded back onto a truck owned by “We Rent Goats” pic.twitter.com/qWHrb7X7n6
— Joe Parris (@KTVBJoe) August 3, 2018
As it turns out, the goats came from a company called We Rent Goats, which — you guessed it — rents goats. Mainly, the goats are rented for the purpose of removing weeds from fields and clearing pastures, open spaces, ditches, and embankments. In this instance, the goats had been working in a nearby drainage area when they decided they’d had enough of their indentured servitude, shook off their chains, and exercised their goat-given rights to roam free.
The “new kids on the block” are now off the block! The final goats are now reluctantly going home. What a morning pic.twitter.com/Quyca6owdy
— Joe Parris (@KTVBJoe) August 3, 2018
By 8:30 AM, however, their exercise in liberty came to an end when they were herded back into a We Rent Goats truck. The Boise invasion, however, will surely live on in goat legend for generations to come. 