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The Tennessee Fainting Goat descends from four unusual goats brought to Marshall County in the early 1880s by a traveling worker named John Tinsley, reputedly from Nova Scotia.
The goats carried a peculiar genetic trait: when startled, their muscles seized and they toppled stiff to the ground.
Tinsley sold these four goats for thirty-six dollars to a local farmer.
The goats made excellent pets, bred prolifically, and unable to leap fences, they proved remarkably easy to contain.
A sheep herder noticed another use. A fainting goat placed among a flock would drop at the first alarm, providing an easy offering for predators allowing the more valuable livestock to escape.
The goat is dead.