Will Lick Up Everything On Ranch Until He Reaches Soap.
The popular belief that goats will eat anything has been shattered by the experience of William Toner, for many years express messenger on the Albany-Yaquina run on the Corvallis & Eastern railroad. They may eat tin cans, old clothes and cordwood, but they draw the line at soap, says the Polk County Itemizer.
Toner has been camping for a week on his ranch just east of Toledo and has a number of goats there. They have been killing off all small vegetation on his uncleared land, eating leaves, bark and twigs off small trees. They ate everything they could reach in the field in which they were placed and one day when the Toner family were away from the ranch they invaded the camp.
They started in to eat everything not covered up, disposing of various kinds of vegetables, a box of crackers and other supplies. But they stopped on a bar of soap. One goat took a bit off the end of the bar, but he didn’t finish it.
Source: Salem Statesman Journal, August 27, 1910.
Carol Ann Hilton 