Keeping Goats on Your Farm (And Out of Trouble)

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Goats are both sweetness and shenanigans, loving and annoying, obedient and troublemakers — often within minutes of each other. But even with all the raw emotions that goats can bring out in their keepers, they still count as the most versatile of all farm animals.
Goats are both sweetness and shenanigans, loving and annoying, obedient and troublemakers — often within minutes of each other. But even with all the raw emotions that goats can bring out in their keepers, they still count as the most versatile of all farm animals.
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Laura Childs’ “The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals” is a practical, thorough guide for anyone interested in having a backyard barnyard.
Laura Childs’ “The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals” is a practical, thorough guide for anyone interested in having a backyard barnyard.

The following is an excerpt fromThe Joy of Keeping Farm Animalsby Laura Childs (Skyhorse Publishing, 2010). In accessible prose accompanied by charming photographs, Childs discusses the basics of raising chickens, goats, sheep, turkeys, pigs and cows, offering valuable insights into the very nature of each animal.This excerpt is from Chapter 2, “Goats.”

Whenever you need to set up an area for goats — inside or out — it is beneficial to remember the adage of a goat, “like a 3-year-old in a goat suit.”

If a barrier can be jumped over, an electrical wire reached, glass windows pushed upon, grain accessed or nails stepped on, it will be. Any object within reach will be challenged, broken, eaten, chewed, ripped, pushed or punctured by a goat. If you wouldn’t leave your 3-year-old nephew alone for 20 minutes in the shelter or hope to hold him with the fence you just built, it probably isn’t adequate for a goat either.

Goats won’t take up much room on your farm. Their housing requirements are nearly as casual as those required for chickens. In fact, a large shed will do just fine for a few goats. With just a little ingenuity and room in your budget, you can have the ideal setup for keeping goats.

There are two primary methods for housing and containing goats. The first is to pasture them and provide a poor-weather and bedding shelter. The other method, “loafing and confinement,” is to keep goats in a shed or small barn with a fenced yard for exercise.

  • Published on Jul 2, 2010
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