Getting Your Goat
Buying a goat for lawn maintenance, including types of goats, feeding, health care.
June/July 1992
by Grail Damerow
A Wall Street Journal staffer once came up with the ultimate economic indicator—the goat index. When times get tough, people buy goats. And with good reason: Goats offer an inexpensive source of milk, meat, fiber, and (not least of all) companionship. They require neither fancy food nor elaborate housing.
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Getting Started
Once you decide what kind of goats you want (see MOTHER'S GUIDE TO GOATS ), try to find a local seller. The goats will already be acclimated to your area and will take to the move more easily than goats trucked in from a distance. Avoid sale barns, since you never know what diseases might lurk there. If you plan to keep your goats in close quarters, another thing to avoid is horns. Goats on open range need horns for protection. but a goat in confinement can easily injure another goat, or you, by playfully turning its head at the wrong moment. Some goats are polled (born without horns). The rest should have their horn buds cauterized as soon as the buds start to show (usually by two weeks of age).
Goats are social creatures and enjoy companionship, so start out with at least two. Goats can be, and often are, raised in a manageable herd of about six. Those six may be all does (females) which you'll need if you want milk, kids, or both. Does also produce the softest fiber. If you wish to raise goats for meat, transport, or as pets, wethers (castrated males) make a good choice. A wether is as muscular as a buck (male) but as gentle as a doe (for seasonal breeding, rather than housing and feeding an intact buck year around. many goat owners find it cheaper and less hassle to use artificial insemination or a stud service).
Milk production requires annual kidding, so if you opt for dairy goats, prepare to deal with a burgeoning population. Goat kids are so cute and cuddly, it's tempting to keep them all. But if you do, your facilities will soon be stretched to the limit and you—and your goats—will be unhappy. Kids or surplus adults may be sold to help pay for the herd's upkeep. Prices vary from under $100 for a scrub goat, to several hundred for a registered purebred, to several thousand for a top breeder. The highest price ever paid for a float was for an Angora buck. May you be so lucky as to have such a goat born in your herd.
Home sweet goat home
Goats need nothing more than a simple shelter to protect them from rain, wind, and sun. A building that is well-ventilated but draft-free serves these purposes and also retains animal-generated body heat in cold weather. Each goat needs at least 15 square feet of living space (miniature breeds need 10 square feet). When goats must reach through head holes to get feed and water outside their stall, they waste less hay, so allow one head hole for every five goats for water and for a salt and soda feeder (more on that later), and one hole per animal for hay.
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