The Colt Raised by Goats (ePub)

A heartwarming story of a colt from Pennsylvania, raised by goats, who grew up to be a stallion (bronco) quite adept at climbing mountains with the best of the goats.

A colt of course, is a baby horse-sometimes as old as four years. A bronco is a grown horse, typically a stallion (male). It is a type of horse, not a species. Bronco basically means "rough." American cowboys from the old west borrowed the term from their Mexican counterparts to describe these untrained or partially trained horses. We have all heard the term bucking bronco-that gives you an idea of how tough a bronco is. A female bronco (AKA a mare v a stallion) is another bucking horse which can be any breed or gender and which has a propensity to buck.

This story begins in the backyard of 54 Perfect Street, the last street between Wilkes-Barre and Ashley Pennsylvania. The mountains frequented by goats are directly behind the house. Perfect Street is so close to the wooded areas of PA that a number of animals frequent the back yard and seem to enjoy the gentle hills in the yard. For the vigilant, the very same animals that are seen outside the back window during all seasons are also spotted close to the mountains where the goats frequently visit. Occasionally, the neighbors will spot a full grown bronco on the lower side of the mountains. It isn't often that wild horses are spotted and so when a neighbor sees a bronco, all the other neighbors learn about it lickety-split. It sure is fun to see.

Our story begins in this section of the lower mountain just beyond Perfect Street. There had been no bronco siting's for several years before this day. There were always a ton of backyard animals in the back yard of the Perfect Street residence. Some of the young children in the neighborhood swear they had spoken to the backyard animals at times. They said there were conversations among the animals and also with the children. I was never fortunate enough to overhear or be part of such conversations. But the smaller kids always told me about the topics they talked about. So, it was like being there.

On a particular day in the fall, the animals had spotted a horse truck on the side of the mountain. The driver stopped and got out and he took a really fat mare out for what looked like a walk. The mare soon collapsed. That's the real beginning of this story. The driver and a friend of his were tending to the mare when the animals saw a baby horse emerge from the mare. The mare's heart had grown weak and it looked like she would not make it. The strangers got a lift out and placed the mare into the horse carrier. They started their truck and took off for parts unknown. They left the baby horse (colt) on the ground in the light snow that had fallen. The backyard animals were chatting for several days about the events of that day. They told the kids who asked what happened to the baby horse. The animals said they had not seen the baby since that day but promised to look harder.

There was about six inches of snow on the ground by then so it was hard to see anything. Eventually the rabbits and the squirrels and the opossum found the colt under the snow. He was still alive. The baby was too big for them so they went looking for their buddies, the goats. They found a few of the goats several hundred yards away and they brought them to see what could have been a baby goat. But it wasn't. One look and the goats knew that it was colt - a baby horse and they promised they would do their best to make sure the baby lived and they said he could live with them. And, so the promise was made that day that the colt would be raised by goats.