When you’re driving through the countryside and you look through your car window to see a herd of sheep, you’ll often see a guard dog somewhere close. An adorable Border Collie running around, doing a great job of supervising the fluffy whites.
Not in Croatia. There’s a little village called Grbaševac in the Koprivnica-Križevci County, whose resident Damir Geci has a herd of goats. There are 48 of them, to be precise, accompanied by 2 billy goats. Geci takes them to pasture every day, takes care of them and feeds them; he and his wife milk the goats twice a day. Your average farming situation – except Geci doesn’t have a dog to help with herding. He has something much more exotic.
If the image above looked a bit surreal on the first glance, you’re not to blame; in these parts, we usually get to see ostriches exclusively in zoos… or watching National Geographic. And yet, Mr Geci has one in his own back yard, and the ostrich seems to be getting along with his goat friends pretty well.
Geci calls his unusual pet Koza, meaning Goat in Croatian. Why? Well, apart from the obvious reason, after living in the country for so long, the ostrich started mimicking the behaviour of his goat companions. His owner calls it a typical manifestation of ostriches not being particularly smart animals – hence the saying ‘sticking your head in the sand’ – but Goat might just be following the other famous saying, ‘you are who you hang out with’.
“The ostrich always joins the goats on pasture, he grazes the grass, drinks water when they drink it, and you should see how protective he acts when they get scared. If you were to walk into this goat-pen now, he would attack you in no time”, said Geci.
Source: Zadarski
