Whoever released 10-12 goats on a North Carolina high school football field last week probably didn’t figure the field would be closed for six months.

But that’s exactly the result for athletes at Burns High School in Lawndale, N.C., who aren’t too happy about having to find a new home for their games after a recent prank on the school’s football field.

Donna Carpenter, the school system’s public information officer, said a recent outbreak of E. coli in the county prompted the extended closure.

“We had some students who, as a prank, put some goats out on the football field,” Carpenter told ABCNews.com. ”You have to understand what’s been going on in this area. This county has a very large county fair. And this is a historically agricultural community.

“We have people who see and pet different animals, and there has been just shy of 100 cases of E. coli. There was a small child that passed away. Everybody was very on edge about E. coli.”