I've had goats pull that stunt -- the bounce off a wall in order to go over something -- though not over such a high fence!
But, I've had goats for over thirty years (and yes, I'm pretty fond of them), and they are NOT smart. Clever sometimes, yes. But not smart. If they were smart, they wouldn't eat the
shelter from over their heads. They wouldn't
pee and
poop in their water buckets and their food. They wouldn't get into a bag of grain and eat until they foundered. They wouldn't repeatedly stick their heads through a fence and need to be helped to get back out! (Once, I could understand, but umpteen times in a row?!?)
Being clever about going over fences isn't astonishing in an animal created to be at home on mountains and cliffs. Being clever about opening gate latches isn't the same thing as being smart -- being smart entails being able to consider the consequences of one's actions (if I chew the tarp to pieces, I will have no shelter from the rain and snow; if I pee and poop in my water
bucket, I won't have anything to drink).
Someone up there said that people who don't like goats are usually just mad because a goat outsmarted them, and that's true. People try to get by with inadequate fencing, and then blame the goats for being escape artists. And blame the goats for eating tasty plants in the
yard and
garden. Etc. Goats will challenge your animal husbandry skills; they will challenge your fence-building skills; they will challenge your patience! But you can't blame the goats if you fall short in one of these areas! A story: Several years ago, I sold a milking doe, a young buck, and a doe kid to an older gentleman who said he'd raised
cattle in his younger years, so I figured he would have some idea about livestock. He had seventy or eighty acres of
land, mostly sagebrush, pine, and juniper
trees, and no close neighbors, so he said he was going to let the goats run loose. He also said he planned to have a garden. I told him he'd better either fence the goats, or fence the garden. He didn't listen. He used to call me just to chat once in a while, lonely, I think. About a year after he bought the goats, he called. He now had eight goats (including five young kids out of the two does), and was sick and tired of them getting into his garden -- he wondered if I could take the goats back. I didn't have room, living on only one
acre, to add that many goats back into my herd -- I don't know what he did with them. But WHY on earth can't people listen when you tell them something?!!? Presumably, as long as I've been keeping goats, I've learned a few things about them. If you do things right -- good fencing; keeping the water buckets and feed where they can't be used as toilets, or walked on, and a few other fairly simple things -- goats really aren't that difficult. But if you don't do everything right, they are one of the most difficult types of livestock to keep, I think. But you can't blame the goats for it!
Kathleen