Goat Enjoying Life After Escape From Pen

BRANFORD, Conn. – After escaping from a holding pen, flying ropes and failed lunges, Billy the goat has quietly made an independent life for himself near the very farm it fled in December.

The Stony Creek goat had been wandering the eastern end of Branford since Christmas, but now has settled in the woods near Medlyn Farms.

While on the lam, the 70-pound male goat showed off its quickness by eluding farmers with lassos, would-be captors’ clutches and even a clergyman’s chase.

“They call him the Christian Goat. Nobody can do anything wrong to the Christian Goat,” Pam Medlyn joked.

The Rev. Wayne Jacobson of the Church of Christ told the New Haven Register that he bought the animal for $133 at the Middlesex Livestock Auction.

“He was picked for his looks,” Jacobson said. “Every now and then (the auction has) this gorgeous, photogenic goat, and that’s what he was.”

The pastor said the goat was going to be featured with actors in the annual Stony Creek Christmas pageant because of its snowy white hair and hollow horns. The animal was going to be put in one of the pageant’s seven Nativity scenes along Thimble Islands Road.

But before the local village lit even one of the pageant’s accompanying 2,400 luminaries, Billy jumped over the fence of his pen and took off, Jacobson said.

Some area residents, including one whose dogwood tree was nearly devoured, have complained, but no real damage has been reported.

Medlyn said she’s not sure why the goat favors the farm, but believes it may feel comfortable around the other livestock, which range from chickens to cows.

“He obviously stays here for some reason,” she said. “He’s welcome to stay as long as he likes.”