Getting your goat: Oakmont event celebrates everyone’s favorite ruminant

If anyone can get your goat, she’s Monica Shields.

She can get you a goat — or for better effect, at least half a dozen — from her Beaver County farm to take care of unwanted vegetation.

And she can get your goat knowledge up to a point where you’ll ace that category on Trivia Night, if it ever arises.

Shields and her husband, Tim, are the owners of Capricious LLC, which supplies perpetually hungry horned ruminants to property owners who seek an environmentally friendly method of plant-related maintenance.

That includes municipalities, and a crew of Capricious critters is back for a second summer to graze on steep banks along the Allegheny River in Oakmont.

“The goats here are 24 days ahead of schedule this year,” Monica said. “Last year, they were here until Sept. 6, and they did such a good job last year at reducing the vegetation that it wasn’t able to come back as strong this year. And so this group is working through so much faster.”

She brought a contingent of young goats — called kids, just like their target audience — to “Meet and Bleat,” a July 18 event providing opportunity to see the workers in action, feed and pet the babies, and listen to the reading of a children’s book with the animal du jour as the main character.

And the human kids had the opportunity to ask questions.

“What would you like to learn?” Shields asked prior to story time, and she quickly learned there was a lot, spending nearly 20 minutes providing answers.

For example, about those protrusions on goats’ heads:

“Their horns actually help them regulate their body temperature. So when the summer, when they get hot, just like you do, you’re able to sweat, right? Well, goats don’t sweat,” Shields explained. “They’ll send more blood up to their horns, and that’s how they release their body heat.”

And why they’re favorites at petting zoos:

“Goats were domesticated early in the history of humans, and so they are a lot like dogs. They really enjoy people’s company, and I think that’s why we like to pet them, because they like to hang around us.”

Oh, and they love to play.

“Here, they’ll run up and down the hillside a lot,” Shields said. “At home, they have three trampolines, two suspension bridges, probably about four balance beams, a bunch of platforms to climb on. They have a ball that hangs that they kick around. They have some slides. So they have a huge playground.”

On the Capricious farm are 78 goats, including 22 born this year. Three received names from suggestions by Oakmont residents in a contest: Oakley, Acorn and, although its nose hasn’t grown longer than it’s supposed to, Pinocchio.

They’re safe from the bears, coyotes and bobcats that wander onto the Shields property.

“We have miniature donkeys that live with the goats at home, and they keep predators from harming the goats,” Monica said. “They know their job, and they do it very well.”

After she fielded all the inquiries, Oakmont Carnegie Library assistant director and children’s librarian Karen Crowell entertained the crowd with a story called “Escape Goat.”

The book by author Ann Patchett and illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser tells the tale of a friendly fellow who likes to sneak out of his pen, only to be blamed by members of the Famer family for whatever goes wrong. Finally, daughter Nicolette points out that the scapegoat — get it? — never is the actually culprit.

Regarding the goats in Oakmont, assistant borough manager Phyllis Anderson arranged for their presence as part of an ongoing sustainability initiative, and she organized “Meet and Bleat” with Crowell, who came up with the catchy name.

As for Shields, one goat-related question sort of had her stumped.

“I don’t know how fast they can run,” she admitted. “They can run faster than me. I know that.”

For more information about Capricious LLC, visit www.capriciousgoats.com.