Raising Goats For Dummies
Overview
No buts: discover the addictive joy of raising goats
Goats are amazing, multi-talented creatures that have been domesticated for over 10,000 years. As well as being a source of food, clothes, and milk, they're wonderful companions: cute, intelligent, and playful—and often as friendly and attentive as dogs. In addition, they make endearing noises and—according to ancient Ethiopian legend—discovered coffee. So what's holding you back? The new edition of Raising Goats For Dummies rebuts all your excuses, and shows you why having one—or, actually, a few—of these companionable ruminants (cud-chewing animals) in your life will bring you great joy, and, if you choose, unbeatable homemade milk and cheese—and possibly a cozy new sweater.
A happy goat aficionado since 1998, Cheryl K. Smith takes you from the grassroots of raising your goat—choosing and buying the breed you want, building and maintaining goat-friendly housing—to more elevated terrain, including how to build your own milk stand, participate in online goat shows (it’s a thing!), and even monetize your goat. You'll also learn the fundamentals of proper care to make sure your goats are fed, kept healthy, and bred in ways that ensure they have the happiest life you can provide.
- Study the history and breeds of goat, like the Nigerian Dwarf or Pygmy
- Live sustainably from and even profit from your goat
- Identify and alleviate common ailments
- Have fun raising the kids!
Whether you're researching buying a goat or learning on the hoof about the ones you have, this book has everything you need to see why getting your goat will bring years and years of joy.
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About The Author
Cheryl K. Smith has raised a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf and Oberian dairy goats under the herd name Mystic Acres since 1998. She is the owner of karmadillo Press and is the author of Goat Health Care, Goat Midwifery, The Best of Ruminations Goat Milk and Cheese Recipes, and Raising Goats: Some Essentials.
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raising goats for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
Goats make great pets. And as more and more people look for ways to live sustainably and grow their own food, goats are a wonderful option for raising meat and milk. You can harvest their fleece, as well. Whether you want to raise goats for food or as the smart, lovable pets they can be, you need to know what questions to ask.
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The average length of time that a person owns goats is only around five years. One reason is that they have unrealistic expectations of what owning goats requires. So what exactly do you need to understand before becoming a goat owner, and what are some of the common missteps you can avoid? © lakov Filimonov / Shutterstock.
Goats are very smart and, despite their independence, can be taught to do much more than follow on a lead or come when called. Start training when goats are kids if you want to succeed with advanced training. Older goats can sometimes learn tricks or to pack, but they're more resistant than younger ones.
Training success depends on your spending a lot of time with the goat and being consistent with your teaching.
Although you probably are excited to buy goats and bring them home, taking some precautions to make sure that you get healthy goats is an important first step. After you have determined what kind of goats you want and how you intend to use them, you can eliminate goats from consideration by asking the following questions:
Are your goats registered?
Goats
If you're new to raising goats in your effort to live sustainably, you may not know that rumination is a good indicator of your goat's health. Because rumination is an essential part of how goats digest food, you can use cud-chewing habits as an indicator of goat health.A ruminating goat is eating and generating heat and energy.
Rasing your own goats for meat can give you a greener, more sustainable lifestyle. A lot of people around the world eat goat meat, which is lean and delicious. Meat goats are generally not used for milking, and some even have traits that make them undesirable to milk. Most of the breeds don't make good fiber goats because they have short coats, but the Spanish goat is an exception.
Your goats are likely to be fine giving birth without assistance, but after they kid, there are some things you can do to help the doe and her kid get off to a good start. The first thing to do when a doe is done kidding is to get her a bucket of warm water with a little molasses (about two gallons of water with one-quarter cup molasses) for energy.
If you're a home spinner or want to get your own supply of fiber, consider raising fiber goats. Angoras produce the fiber called mohair, which is a silky fiber used in many products. Cashmere, produced by the cashmere goat, is an even more exotic fiber and is in high demand. It comes from the undercoat of these goats.
If raising goats is part of your green lifestyle, you can make yourself more sustainable by giving your goats vaccines yourself. Just what vaccines do your goats need to be healthy? Well, most veterinarians recommend that, at a minimum, you vaccinate goats for clostridium perfringens types C and D and tetanus (CDT).
If you have only a couple of goats, you probably can afford the occasional veterinary visit. But as your herd grows, you're likely to find that you want to save money and hassle by treating some of their minor ailments or handling some of the health care yourself. But even if you don't want to take over some of this care, you still need to be prepared for those times when a vet isn't available or the problem is minor.
Dairy goats are generally disbudded, although a minority of goat owners prefer horns because they believe it is more natural. Fiber goats are often left with horns, which are believed to help with temperature regulation, as a consideration for animals with a heavy coat. Some meat goat shows also require that the animals have horns.
Goats are mammals and are similar to other mammals in some ways. But they also have unique features that indicate whether they are healthy, tell you how old they are, and even give clues about their parents. © Milya Shaykh / Shutterstock.com
Parts of the body
You can own goats and not know the names of parts of their bodies.
Most goats can give birth without human help, but if you want to raise goats as part of your green lifestyle, you need to know the basics of kidding (the birthing process) so you can help when you have to. Here are the basics about labor.
The first stage of labor
The uterus contracts and dilates, forcing the unborn kid against the cervix (neck of the uterus).
Before you bring home any goats to supplement your green lifestyle, you have to determine how many goats you really need. One of the biggest mistakes new goat farmers make is getting too many goats.You need at least two goats so that they can keep each other company, but it's better to start slow. And you need to get only wethers (castrated male) or does, depending on your purpose, unless you have seriously considered the implications of getting a buck and decided that you really need one.
If you're raising goats as part of a green lifestyle, you need an overall feeding program to keep your goats at maximal performance, but at times you need to make exceptions for certain goats or categories of goats. Pregnant goats, milking does, kids, and senior goats need special attention and modified diets.
If you're raising goats to harvest the fiber for your own use or to sell, you need to know the basics of shearing. Not all goats have the same requirements. For example, you need to shear Angora goats twice a year to get the most fiber. You don't shear cashmere- or cashgora-producing goats; instead you comb or pluck the fiber once a year.
To breed goats, you have to recognize when a doe is in heat and when a buck is in rut. Some signs that your goats are ready for breeding are more obvious (to your nose as well as your eyes) than others. Here's what to watch for:
Does in heat
The heat cycle lasts from a few hours to a few days. You might not be able to tell that a kid is in heat, but an adult doe usually creates quite a hullabaloo.
If you're new to raising goats, you may not know that goats are terrible hay wasters. Having a hay feeder can help both to reduce that waste and to attain your goal of living a green lifestyle. The simple hay feeder outlined here will feed about 10 goats.
You need at least one commercial box feeder for every four goats.
Goats
Goats need mineral supplements to stay healthy. Here's an easy way to build a mineral block feeder yourself. This is a really simple idea for a wooden mineral block holder that keeps the mineral block off the ground and also covers the top of it, so when those kids start jumping they just land on wood. You can buy the wood for this, or make it from pieces you have lying around.
Goats sometimes choose to sleep outside, depending on the weather. But they need to have access to a secure indoor area to sleep in. You meet that desire by building them a sleeping shelf. You can build a sleeping shelf for your goats in an existing barn, garage, or other building. You need very few materials to build it.
No matter whether raising goats is part of your plan to green up your lifestyle or just a hobby, you want to make sure that the goats you purchase are healthy and aren't going to rack up a lot of veterinary bills.
Ask the following questions to help determine whether a goat is healthy:
What diseases do you test for?
To help a nursing goat stay healthy, you must care for the udder and prevent mastitis. The udder is composed of two halves and is held up by ligaments in the front, back, and sides. Each half has a mammary gland and one teat. Most of the milk is stored in the mammary gland until the udder is stimulated to let it down for kids or for you at milking time.
Castrating your kids is an easy procedure. If you are squeamish about it, have a veterinarian or a goatkeeper friend do it for you. If you want to observe before trying it yourself, volunteer to hold the goat for the procedure. All of the methods require a helper to hold the goat.About a half hour before castrating the kid, give him one adult aspirin, 0.
Nothing is worse than buying some goats, bringing them home, getting attached to them, and then discovering that they won't work out in your situation, are the wrong type, or aren't what the seller represented. Here are some characteristics to consider when looking for goats to buy:
Goats need company: A lot of people make the mistake of getting only one goat.
To a show your goat, you need to pretty it up a bit by washing, clipping, and trimming hooves. Not all goat shows have the same grooming requirements, so check before you clip. Here are some hints for preparing your goats for showing.
Clip your goats two weeks before a show to allow any mistakes to grow back.
To clip a goat for a show, you need
Clippers
Clipper oil
Scissors
Brush
#50 surgical blade
Follow these steps to clip a goat for a fuzzy goat show:
Secure the goat on a stanchion by tying it with a short rope to a fence or by having another person hold it.
Keeping goats can be part of a green lifestyle, and although goats are pretty low maintenance as far as grooming goes, an annual clipping is a good idea for all goats. Shorter hair helps goats stay cooler and allows sunlight to reach their skin, which drives away lice and other critters. Choose a day after the cold weather is expected to be over.
A green lifestyle that includes goats doesn't mean you have to live with ticks, mites, and fleas. External parasites are often just an annoyance, but they can lead to bacterial infections of the skin. You can prevent such infections by routine grooming, avoiding indoor overcrowding of your goats, and identifying and treating infestations early.
Goats
If you're new to raising goats, it may surprise you that flies, mosquitoes, and other bugs are part of raising livestock. But you do have some options for controlling these critters. The cheapest way to minimize pests is to keep the barn or goat shed dry and remove wet bedding weekly during warm or hot weather.
Goats, like humans, are subject to viruses of different sorts. One of the worst viruses that can afflict your goats is Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus (CAEV). CAEV is a member of the same virus family as HIV. It was named for two of the most common forms of the disease — arthritis, which usually is in the form of swollen knees, and encephalitis, which shows up as neurological problems.
Goats are creatures of habit. If you want to maximize the amount of milk you get and make milking easier, you need to develop a regular milking routine, which means using the same place and same procedure every day.
A milking routine requires you to
Have a milking area separate from the other goats (otherwise they will bug you and steal grain from the goat being milked).
Making sure your goats have proper nutrition is one of the most important things you can do as a goat owner. Many health problems, such as scours, bloat, and enterotoxemia can be traced back to what your goats ate or didn't eat.
Scours
Scours, the common name for diarrhea in goats, is one of the most common problems in kids (baby goats) as they adjust to food.
Heads up: This is an article full of goat owner jargon — we're not kidding! Okay, let's jump in.Disbudding a goat means removing the horns when they are mere buds in a kid (baby goat). Dairy goats are generally disbudded, although a minority of goat owners prefer horns because they believe it is more natural.If you've decided to disbud your goats, you have to consider whether to use a veterinarian, have a goat-experienced friend disbud, or do it yourself.
A veterinarian will come out to your farm to do most kinds of tests on your goats. But you can be more sustainable and save money by drawing blood from your goats and sending the samples directly to a lab. Ask your veterinarian or another breeder who is comfortable with drawing blood to show you how they do it, or follow the steps below.
To make your goat's kidding go more easily and protect both dam (mother) and kids, you need to take certain precautions before the big event. Here are some tips for having a successful kidding season.
Preparing the doe
During the last two months of pregnancy you need to do some routine care to make sure that the doe and you have an easy kidding.
You can have a vet visit or take your goats to a clinic to receive vaccinations or other injections, and many goat owners do this. But to save the money, you can do it yourself. Giving injections is easy after you get over any fear you might have.It can help to have an experienced person demonstrate the technique before you try it.
If you're raising goats, you need to protect your garden and trees from them. Goats are browsers, which means they eat bushes, trees, and woody plants. They also prefer variety in their diet and so try most of the plants that are available.If you want to keep any flowers or bushes and trees, make sure they aren't growing in an area where your goats might go.
If you're raising goats as part of a green lifestyle, your goats won't require a lot of grooming. But grooming pays dividends in the long run by making the goat feel better (who doesn't feel better with a good brushing?), enabling you to evaluate the goat's health, and giving the goat more experience with being handled.
If you're raising goats as part of a green, sustainable lifestyle, you'll want to milk them. Hand-milking a goat isn't difficult, but you do have to practice to be efficient at it. Some goats are like cows and have teats that are large enough for you to use all your fingers on them, while others are so small that you can only use three fingers.
Raising goats can be a great way to achieve a sustainable lifestyle, but you want to keep them healthy and happy. Goats are into exercise by nature because they're browsers, which means they're always on the move. As long as they have each other and ample space to move around, they can stay physically fit, but exercising your goats can make your life and theirs more fun.
Raising goats for milk is part of a green lifestyle. If you don't think your hands are strong enough to hand-milk your goats, you have a problem such as carpal tunnel, or milking your goats by hand just takes too long, consider getting a milking machine. Small-scale dairy goat farms use a bucket milk machine rather than one with a direct line into a bulk milk tank.
Goats
If you live in a state that doesn't require identification, you don't have to permanently identify unregistered goats. If you get a registered goat, it should already have a microchip or tattoo, and if you want to register a goat that is eligible for one of the registries, you will be required to permanently identify it to prove that the goat is who you say it is.
If you want to breed your goats, it helps to know about goat breeding behavior. Some goats can breed or be bred when they're as young as two months old, although the majority are not fertile until four to six months old. This range arises because goats are generally seasonal breeders and don't develop heat cycles until the fall.
Goats
Removing the horns from a baby goat is called disbudding, or dehorning. The process of disbudding a kid (baby goat) burns through the skin and horn bud, stopping the blood supply to the horn buds and causing them to eventually fall off, if all goes well. If they do grow back, the partial horns are called scurs.
Before you turn your goat fiber into yarn, you need to put it through several processes. To process your fiber, you need to wash, card or comb, and spin. Here are some hints for preparing goat fiber.
Washing
Unless you're selling your raw fleece to a commercial operation, you need to wash your goat fleece to remove grease, dirt, and other impurities:
Separate the fleece into smaller bundles and put them into mesh bags.
After you finally get the goats you dreamed of to supplement your green lifestyle, you don't want to put them at risk or lose them from an avoidable cause. Goats are curious, and if there are toxins around, they may very well poison themselves. To protect your herd, evaluate items that you have stored or are in use in your yard, garage, or barn with an eye to goat safety.
Goats will eat almost anything, but you must guard against your goats eating poisonous plants. Goats ignore poisonous plants most of the time, but because of their need to browse, they may try them just for variety.Whether a goat that eats a poisonous plant shows signs of poisoning depends on how much of the plant it eats, what part of the plant it eats, the condition of the plant (fresh or dried), the time of year, and the size and health of the goat.
If you're going to raise goats, you need to watch out for common predators in your area, even if you are well within the city. Most of the animals that we traditionally think of as predators, such as wolves and bobcats, are rarely found in the city. But, smaller predators like dogs and birds of prey are much more common.
Goats are creatures of habit. You can learn these habits and use them to identify illness simply by observing your goats a couple of times each day. Besides, it's a good excuse to spend time with your goats.Some goats always stay with the herd, while others tend to go it alone or hang out with just one buddy. When a social goat isolates itself or a loner goat suddenly gets into the middle of the herd and starts fighting a lot, you have a clue that something might be wrong.
Goats
If you have goats as part of your green, sustainable lifestyle, you might want to breed them. Pregnant goats require some special considerations even if the pregnancy is normal. Here are some conditions to watch for in the does you have bred and some solutions for dealing with pregnancy-related problems.
A goat's gestation is approximately 150 days, although it can vary between 145 and 155.
Raising goats is part of a green lifestyle. Always make sure to store your hay, grain, and other feed in a location that your goats can't reach. You also need to keep grain, opened bags of chaffhaye, beet pulp, and other supplements out of the reach of rats, mice, and other vermin.
You can store hay in a loft, in a closed stall with a goat-proof latch, or in any other area that goats can't reach.
Goats
Part of a green lifestyle may include raising goats. As a goat owner, you need to know how to check your animal’s vital signs. Checking your goat’s temperature, pulse, and respiration can tell you a lot about its overall health.
Taking a goat’s temperature
Taking a goat’s temperature is easy. You need either a digital or traditional glass thermometer that you can buy from a feed store, a drug store, or a livestock supply catalog.
Goats
No matter whether you're keeping goats because they contribute to a sustainable lifestyle or as a 4-H project for your kids, you'll need to mark them for easy identification. Tattooing your goats is relatively inexpensive. Basic equipment for tattooing costs less than $100 and only a few dollars a year after that.
Caring for your goats is a lot easier if your goats have some basic training and are used to being handled. Nothing is worse than having to chase down and capture a sick goat or having to drag and lift it into a vehicle for a vet visit. Follow these tips to raise well-mannered and manageable goats.
Using collars
Collars are a useful tool for handling goats.
As part of your sustainable lifestyle, you'll want to be able to handle the routine birth of goats without calling in a vet. As the time nears for your goat to kid, you may get just as nervous as she does. She most likely can kid on her own, but you want to make sure that she has a clean, safe place to do so. Here are some tips on how to tell when your goat is getting close to kidding.
The best way to find out whether your goats have parasites is through fecal analysis, which involves collecting a sample of goat berries, mixing them with a solution, and viewing the resulting sample under a microscope to see whether they contain too many parasite eggs.
Unfortunately, most goat owners rarely have their goat feces analyzed.
If you're raising goats as part of your effort to live a green lifestyle, you may want to train them for packing. Although you can train almost any goat to pack, you're better off looking for a goat with certain qualities:
Large: Dairy wethers are the most highly valued goats for packing. The bigger they are, the more they can carry.
Whether you're raising goats as part of a green lifestyle or using goats as part of a 4-H project, you can train your goats to pull a cart. First, you teach a goat to pull an empty cart. Take plenty of time with training, and train the goat away from other goats and distractions so you can both focus and avoid problems.
Lead training your goats is essential if you're planning to show your goats. A jumping, fighting, or obstinate goat doesn't fare well in the show ring. Even if you don't show goats, teaching them how to walk on a lead makes them easier to manage.When you lead train, try to recruit a helper to push the goat from behind when it stops walking.
Raising goats is part of a green lifestyle, but to be sustainable, you have to learn to handle your goats' common health problems, such as treating abscesses, without calling in the vet. Abscesses often appear as lumps in goats' head and neck region, but they show up in other areas, too.Infectious abscesses are usually caused by a foreign object, such as a splinter or a thorn, lodging under a goat's skin and becoming infected.
Grooming a goat is pretty basic, and keeping a goat's hooves trimmed is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most important parts of goat care. Regular trimming takes very little time and cuts down on health care expenses in the long term.
How often you trim depends on each goat and the conditions it lives in.
One of the most exciting parts of raising goats as part of a green lifestyle is kidding. But when a baby goat is born too weak to suck, you need to get fluids into him. If the kid is a newborn, he needs colostrum. To boost the kid's energy, add some corn syrup or Nutridrench to the colostrum.
For a weak kid that has already gotten colostrum, use electrolytes, B vitamins, probiotics, and goat milk or milk replacer.
Before you bring your goats home, you need to build them a shelter. Goatkeepers have come up with a lot of different ideas for goat shelters. These can range from a "Taj Mahal," if you have space and a lot of money to spend, to a very simple shelter when you don't have land or money.
Before you build your shelter, find a flat, dry area where the shelter will sit level.
Goats
Raising goats can be part of a green lifestyle, but you have to learn to deal with the internal parasites that are common in goats. They mainly affect the goats' digestive system, although a few migrate to other parts of the body. Here are some of the parasites to watch for.
Coccidiosis
These single-celled organisms are always in the goat's environment and are normally carried by all goats.
If you want to raise goats to promote a more sustainable lifestyle, but you have limited space or don't want to be drowning in goat milk, the miniature dairy breeds might be good choices for you.
Miniature breeds are relatively new to the scene but are growing in popularity. Miniature dairy goats include Nigerian Dwarves, Pygmies, and the most recent development in dairy goats in the United States: miniature, crossbred versions of the standard breeds, called minis.
If you're raising and milking goats as part of a green lifestyle, you'll want to keep your milk fresh and to pasteurize it. The best way to keep milk fresh is to drink it as soon as possible. But even before that, whether you pasteurize your milk or drink it raw, you need to start out with the best quality possible.
Bringing home goats requires some forethought on your part so that you can keep your goats safe, healthy, and protected from predators. Here’s a glimpse of the projects you need to undertake before you get your goats:
Build housing or get current housing ready. Goats need some kind of shelter from the elements and a safe place to bunk down.
Before you call a vet to come to your farm or bring a goat in for a non-routine care visit — unless it is a serious emergency — take a few steps to make sure that your goat gets the most appropriate care.
Make notes of the goat’s symptoms, how long it has been sick, and the medications or other care you’ve given so far.
If you've decided to raise goats to green up your lifestyle, you need to provide good fencing to keep them in and to keep predators out. You can also use fencing to protect your trees and shrubs from goats. Adequate fencing means different things in different situations. If you have kids and adult goats, you need to make sure the kids can't get through the fencing and the adults can't get over it.
To keep your goats safe, you need to provide them shelter. How elaborate your goat shelter is depends on where you live, what structures are available, how much you can afford, and how many goats you plan to have in the shelter. Some of the things to consider when deciding where your goats will live include:
Flooring: Dirt or gravel floors are best, although some people prefer wood.
Goats make great pets. And as more and more people look for ways to live sustainably and grow their own food, goats are a wonderful option for raising meat and milk. You can harvest their fleece, as well. Whether you want to raise goats for food or as the smart, lovable pets they can be, you need to know what questions to ask.
Your goats will let you know when something’s wrong, but you need to recognize the signs. You need to investigate further or begin taking action if you see the following signs of illness:
Not chewing cud
Not getting up
Pressing her head against wall or fence
Not eating
Feces aren’t pelleted
Not
Raising goats is part of a green, sustainable lifestyle. But if you want to sell your goat milk, you have to understand the laws surrounding food distribution. Although selling anything other than Grade "A" pasteurized milk is illegal in 46 states, farmers can still sell raw milk legally in 32 states. The states that have legalized the sale of milk that's not from a Grade "A" dairy or pasteurized have done so by passing additional laws or administrative rules.
When choosing goats to raise as part of a green lifestyle, you must consider your needs and circumstances to choose the right breed. The standard breeds are a good choice if you want dairy goats that produce a lot of milk and you have the space. If you think you want standard dairy goats, deciding which one is for you depends mainly on size, the look, and the personality that strikes your fancy:
Alpine: Alpines, also known as French Alpines, are large goats with erect ears and come in a variety of colors and patterns.
Goats need supplemental minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients in addition to those they get in their hay, grain, and browse. Vitamins and minerals are essential to keeping goats healthy, making sure they're growing well, and assisting in reproduction and the development of skin and bone.You can supplement your goats' browse and feed them essential minerals and vitamins by supplying them with free-choice loose minerals or a mineral block, which you can find in most feed stores.
Whether you are raising goats as part of a sustainable lifestyle or because you like to keep them as pets, they need a consistent supply of fresh, clean water to grow properly, stay healthy, and do their best in milk production. Pregnant and lactating does have the highest water needs, and when the weather is hot and dry, all goats need more water.
Goats
If you've decided to raise goats to further your sustainable lifestyle, before you bring them home, you need to provide them shelter and bedding. Bedding for goats has two purposes: to provide a more comfortable area on which goats can walk and lie down and to absorb the goats’ urine and feces.You have several options for bedding:
Straw: Straw is easy to store because it comes in bales, and it’s inexpensive.
If you have purebred goats and are interested in competing or want to see how your goats compare to others of the same breed, you can show them at fairs and other events put on by different goat associations. Showing has the added benefit of helping you market your goats. Here are ten guidelines to remember:
Practice walking with your goat before the show: Even a well-trained goat may be a little nervous during the show because of unfamiliarity with the show ring, but if you lead-train first, at least the goat has an idea of what you expect.
You get a lot from keeping goats. Raising goats can help you achieve a sustainable lifestyle. You can milk them or eat their meat, use their fiber and their skin for making clothing, and even use their dung for fuel (if you are so inclined).You may want to raise goats for a variety of reasons:
Becoming more self-sufficient: Goats can give you milk to drink and food to eat, and even help you carry your belongings when backpacking.
If you’re adding goats to an existing herd, you need to quarantine any new goats you purchase for at least 30 days. This means that you need an area with adequate shelter that completely separates your herd from the new goats. Quarantine protects the other goats from any unknown or undisclosed health problems that the new goats might have.
Ready to bring your goats home? If you purchase your goats from a breeder who lives across the country, the breeder is responsible for getting the goats to a shipper, and all you have to do is find out where to pick them up. If you bought the goats from a neighbor and they are trained to lead, just put them on leashes and lead them home.
Goats
If you're new to raising goats, you might not be sure that you're feeding them the right amount of food. Body-condition scoring is a way to determine whether a goat is in good health. You can use it to determine whether you're feeding correctly.
To determine body condition, you have to feel certain key points of the goat's body.
Many goat owners keep livestock guardian dogs, donkeys, llamas, or alpacas with goats as full-time guard animals. Guardian animals can add a substantial cost in terms of training and upkeep, but they may be well worth the effort and time if they work out.
Try to get a guardian animal from a breeder who has used the animals for this purpose and can vouch for (but not guarantee) their pedigree, training, and temperament.
Raising goats is part of a green lifestyle, but to be sustainable, you have to learn to handle common problems like treating pneumonia — an inflammation of the lungs caused by parasites, CAEV, CLA, a sudden change in weather, viruses, poor nutrition, the stress of transport, or poor ventilation. Healthy goats normally have some bacteria in their lungs but have antibodies to protect them.
If you've just brought home new goats, whether to enhance a green lifestyle or to keep as pets, you need to watch them for signs of stress. Even when you start with healthy goats, transporting can stress them emotionally and physically. Emotional stresses include
Leaving their mothers and friends
Losing their standing in the herd and having to establish a new position
Being in unfamiliar surroundings
Physical stresses can include
Being moved to a transport vehicle
Prolonged standing in a moving vehicle
Temperature extremes, rain, and wind
Lack of exercise
Insufficient food and water intake
Crowding or being moved with unfamiliar goats
Being bullied by more aggressive goats
At best, the stress of shipping only causes a goat to have a depressed appetite and not seem quite herself, but she snaps out of it in a few hours or days.
Whether you're raising goats as pets or to supplement your green lifestyle, one of the most important parts of being a goat owner is making sure that they're healthy. You can do it when you're feeding, or just go out and watch them. The bonus is that hanging out with goats is relaxing!A healthy goat has shiny eyes and glossy hair and is curious and energetic, unless resting and chewing cud.
Many people are choosing to raise goats as part of a sustainable lifestyle. If you're new to raising goats, understanding goat behavior will help you keep your herd healthy and happy. Goat herds are hierarchical. Might rules, but so does nepotism. Sometimes you may feel inclined to intervene in your goats' bad behavior, but don't do it unless someone is getting hurt.
Before you get your goats, you need to make sure you have all the feeding equipment they need, as well as a stockpile of food. All goats need certain kinds of feed, but they have differing nutritional requirements depending on their gender and what stage of life they're in — and contrary to urban myth, no, they don't eat old boots or tin cans.
Finding goats to supplement your green lifestyle or to raise as pets isn't difficult. If you're looking for a rare goat breed or have very specific needs, finding the goats you want locally might be a little harder, but take your time and use some of the resources discussed here:
Local feed stores: Get acquainted with the proprietors of local feed stores.
Responsible goat owners who breed goats eventually have to turn a buckling (young male) into a wether — that is, castrate him. Fortunately, castration is an easy procedure and is surprisingly not that hard on a goat. With a minor painkiller, a castrated goat is usually back to his old self within a few hours after the procedure.
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