If you have been considering getting a goat
as a “cheap” lawnmower, think again. Goats require
a lot of care and attention as they are very social animals.
And, far from being a cheap alternative to the lawnmower,
they can be relatively expensive to keep. True, you may not
pay very much to get a goat, but if you add up the cost of
feed, housing, veterinary bills and damaged property you may
find it more economical to buy a mechanical mower. Certainly,
there are plenty of goats who started their lives as cute,
cuddly kids with bright eyes and soft bodies but who ended
up alone and sad in a paddock having passed the cute stage.
So, before you go out and get a goat make sure you have decided
firmly to give it the companionship it deserves.
Housing
The best place to keep your goat is in a well-fenced paddock
(the sort that sheep are generally kept in), the key word
being “well-fenced”. Goats are excellent climbers,
so if your fence is in poor condition with sagging wires and
broken posts, your goat will have a good chance of escaping.
Do not use barbed wire.
If you tether your goat, you should build a running-line
of at least 20 meters in length, with a chain of at least
two meters in length attached to the line by a ring. It must
be long enough to allow the goat to get to fresh water and
shelter.
Goats, unlike sheep, do not have waterproof hair and can
get a bad chill very easily. Wild goats use caves and trees
for protection from the cold so your pet goat needs a dry,
waterproof shelter. The best thing to use would be a dog kennel
with a few old clean blankets inside. The shelter should be
raised about six to 10cm, off the ground to keep away dampness,
and be lined with hay. The shelter needs to be big enough
for the goat to stand up inside it and completely turn around.
If your goat is on a chain, make sure the chain is long enough
for the goat to jump up on top of the shelter, but not so
long that the goat can fall off the other side and strangle
itself. It is likely that your goat will want to spend quite
a lot of time on top of the shelter.
Diet
Goats need more than just grass to eat, so make sure you add
to their diet lots of bulky feeds such as hay, ferns, thistles,
leafy branches of trees, vegetable peelings, cabbage leaves,
cut-up carrots and crusts of bread. Goats need bulky feed
to enable them to digest properly, and a varied diet is very
important. You also need to provide your goat with a salt-lick,
or a small amount of table salt from your hand every day.
You must keep your goat from invading your garden, partly
to protect the garden but also to prevent the goat from eating
one of the many flowers and shrubs that are poisonous to goats.
Examples of these are rhododendrons and camellias, both of
which are deadly to goats.
Provide your goat with plenty of fresh, clean water, even
if it does not seem to drink it. The water container should
be heavy enough to stop the goat from tipping it over.
Health/Veterinary requirements
Goats must be vaccinated against tetanus. A 4-1 vaccine is
to be given at docking or weaning (three months of age) and
boosted six weeks later.
Worms and lice can be a problem, and goats should be drenched
or dipped as follows: kids up to the age of five months drench
once every 21 days; adults, drench every four months. The
safest and most effective drenches include Ivomec, and white
drenches such as Systemex and Synanthic. Other drenches either
don’t work on goats or are bad for them.
Goats kept on pasture and other soft ground can develop lameness,
which is very distressing and painful. The addition of a large
boulder or a pile of rocks will help to prevent lameness and
will also give the goat something to play on.
If your goat seems to be depressed or is not eating or is
in a generally poor state of appearance, see you veterinary
surgeon immediately.
Desexing
Desexing will stop unwanted litters of kids from being born.
Kids may be cute but require a lot of extra work and care
and will soon grow up to become full-sized goats. The speying
(for females) or neutering (for males) of your goat should
make it a lot happier, and will make male goats less aggressive
and smelly.
Loneliness
As previously mentioned, goats are very social animals and
detest being alone. You must visit your goat frequently, but
the most effective way to prevent loneliness to have two goats.
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