Fainting goats
In the American state of Tennessee, breeders are engaged in breeding a special breed of goats, which are popularly called fainting goats. In emergency situations, such a goat falls into a complete stupor and falls on its back or sideways with its legs outstretched.
Fainting goats (scientifically they are called myotonic) are a fairly rare American breed that has been known since the end of the XIX century, and in the 1980s almost disappeared altogether.
These goats are famous for their rare genetic disease — myotoma congenita. When they are surprised or frightened, they have complete muscular paralysis, and the animal loses the ability to move, and at the same time does not experience absolutely no pain and remains fully conscious. She cannot stand in this state, and therefore falls on her side or on her back with outstretched hooves.
Because of this feature, the breed is called nervous goats, wooden goats and stiff-legged goats in different states. They do not belong to frisky animals, and partly because of this, and partly because of the disease, the average fainting goat is 40% thicker than an ordinary one, that is, they are a meat breed.
The set of situations in which a goat faints is approximately as follows: immediate danger to life; a lot of grain (they love grain very much); a handsome man (beauty) of the opposite sex. Any of these factors incapacitates the animal for at least 10-15 seconds.
The gene of the disease is inherited and is recessive, that is, it manifests itself in every second generation. A myotonic goat can be crossed with a normal one, and the gene will be passed on to descendants. Lovers of nervous goats organized in 1989 an appropriate international association that monitors the purity of the breed and forms standards.
For many years, the value of fainting goats was not in the meat. Several generations of sheep farmers have used them in a rather creepy way. Instead of guarding the herd with dogs, they added a nervous goat to each flock. When a coyote suddenly appeared from the forest, the sheep scattered in different directions, and the unfortunate goat fell into a stupor. She was killed, but the rest of the herd remained intact.