Exhausted by the stresses and strains of modern life, Thomas Thwaites decided to forgo home comforts and test if the grass really was greener elsewhere – by living as a goat in Switzerland.
The then 35-year-old from London was so serious about his unusual idea that he spent an entire year creating prosthetic ‘goat legs’ to galivant around the Alps on all fours, as well as an artificial stomach that would enable him to ‘eat grass’.
And as strange as the concept might seem, the bigger goal for Thomas was to ‘get outside of myself and experience the world from a different perspective’ – even if it meant spending his days chewing up grass and avoiding some goats that were less accepting of their new human friend.
By the end of his experiment, Thomas found he had indeed become ‘one of their number’ and came to find the mountain dwellers make ‘better people than we do’.
Speaking to MailOnline, he said: ‘When I first had the idea, a lot of people called me crazy but I was fed up with my life and I needed a break.
‘I was jobless and I had a lot of personal problems, and I found everyday life so stressful.
‘One day I was walking with the dog of a friend and I noticed that the dog just seemed really happy about life, without any worries, and I thought to myself it would be really great to be you for a day.’
He considered becoming a dog, he explained, but was not keen on eating meat.
The adventurous researcher then landed on the idea of becoming an elephant, but then realised they ‘seem to have the same problems we do – they get sad, they get upset and they can even suffer from post-traumatic stress.
‘That was exactly the sort of thing I was trying to get away from.’
Goats however offered him a seemingly perfectly solution to all he was looking for.
Having applied for a university grant to study goat psychology, Thomas tracked down a goatherd in the village of Wolfenschiessen in Switzerland which was prepared to take him in for a few days while the animals grazed on their summer pasture.
Then came the challenge of living as a goat, which meant being able to walk on all fours and digest grass.
The researcher enlisted the help of a prosthetics clinic in Manchester to create his ‘goat legs’, while experts from the University of Aberystwyth designed a goat’s ‘stomach’ for him, which was strapped onto his waist.
‘I could strap this bag to my torso and spit chewed up grass into one opening and suck the cultured microbes and volatile fatty acids out another opening like a milkshake, so I could digest them in my true stomach and live off grass in the Alps like a goat,’ he said.
There were inevitably obstacles to life as a goat, which at times became a literal uphill struggle.
He said: ‘I suffered quite a lot as a goat – because of the slope I was constantly falling over, and of course I had to eat grass.
‘Also the goats didn’t seem to like me very much, sometimes I thought they were really going to try and attack me. And they have particularly dangerous horns.
‘But I later realised that they were just letting me know there was a hierarchy, and I should know my place.’
Despite the challenges however, Thomas was appreciative of his time as goat.
‘I learned something important, and that is that even goats have a hard life and need to fight for their existence,’ he explained.
‘Every day was tough, and that is something that just is part of being alive.
‘The one other thing I reckon I found is that goats are better people. They live much more in the moment than we do, and show us that we really do need to learn to be a bit more relaxed about life.’
By the end of his experiment, Thomas felt he had integrated with the herd – and even gained a new friend.
Thomas said: ‘The best moment was when one of the goats suddenly decided she was going to be my friend, and she just followed me everywhere.
‘She would muzzle me with her nose and like to have me close.
‘The goatherd told me at the end that the herd had accepted me as one of their number – it was a great feeling.’
He wrote a bestselling book in 2016 about his adventure – GoatMan: How I Took A Holiday From Being Human – and even picked up an award.
Thomas was handed an Ig Nobel Prize, which are given annually to ‘honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think’.
