An Only Goat

[Chickie Mama]

On St. Patrick's day we brought home a darling baby goat we named Blarney. He was rescued by a friend of a friend from an awful situation (I'll spare you the gory details) and once we saw him, it was love at first sight. It is believed that he is probably 4-5 weeks old. Mixed mystery breed. He is living in the house with us right now. He's in a big dog crate with a hot water bottle during the day while I am at work and when I am home he is free to roam (with supervision) around the house. It has only been 2 days but he seems to be responding to the puppy pad training! Which is WONDERFUL! The little sucker likes to pee.

Now for my question(s)...
When the weather warms and he is weaned, it is our plan to transition him to the barn. In the barn he would be the only goat, but share an outdoor space with 30+ year old horse. Right now he has 2 dogs, 3 cats and 2 people to interact with. I am concerned that when he moves out to the barn he'll get lonely with only an old cranky horse to socialize with. Blarney will have his own living space, away from the horse, with climbing structures. I also plan on bringing him from the barn (I'm leash training him) over to the back yard and around the farm to socialize with me and the dogs each afternoon- at least at first, to help with the transition.

Just about everything I read says you CAN NOT have just one goat, but we'd rather not get another goat. We didn't really plan on this one. BUT now that he is with us, I want him to be happy. We do love the little guy.

Any helpful tips or thoughts?

 

[gatorshark75]

On St. Patrick's day we brought home a darling baby goat we named Blarney. He was rescued by a friend of a friend from an awful situation (I'll spare you the gory details) and once we saw him, it was love at first sight. It is believed that he is probably 4-5 weeks old. Mixed mystery breed. He is living in the house with us right now. He's in a big dog crate with a hot water bottle during the day while I am at work and when I am home he is free to roam (with supervision) around the house. It has only been 2 days but he seems to be responding to the puppy pad training! Which is WONDERFUL! The little sucker likes to pee.

Now for my question(s)...
When the weather warms and he is weaned, it is our plan to transition him to the barn. In the barn he would be the only goat, but share an outdoor space with 30+ year old horse. Right now he has 2 dogs, 3 cats and 2 people to interact with. I am concerned that when he moves out to the barn he'll get lonely with only an old cranky horse to socialize with. Blarney will have his own living space, away from the horse, with climbing structures. I also plan on bringing him from the barn (I'm leash training him) over to the back yard and around the farm to socialize with me and the dogs each afternoon- at least at first, to help with the transition.

Just about everything I read says you CAN NOT have just one goat, but we'd rather not get another goat. We didn't really plan on this one. BUT now that he is with us, I want him to be happy. We do love the little guy.

Any helpful tips or thoughts?

thats not true we had one goat for a long time and she was ok being the only goat her best friends were our dogs and she thought she was one of the family and wanted to be with us as a matter of fact we have two goats now but the older one is outside and the baby is in a dog crate right next to our bed right now we are starting to wean him and hopefully soon he will be outside with the other goat

 

[Peaches Lee]

He is really cute! I have one goat. I don't think she ever misses her kind. She is actually quite aggressive with the other animals (tries to head butt the horses, pulls the cats tails, attacks my chickens). I'd say just let him adjust. He is probably really happy that you have him and are providing food, warmth, shelter and love for him, not to sound sappy or anything. If you do plan on putting him with your horse, please use the strictest of caution, I know of horses that will stomp to death goats--I would hate for this to happen to you (if your horse is fine with goats then ignore that last statement ) Good luck to you!

 

[Stacykins]

Almost no responsible breeder or owner will advocate keeping a goat alone. Ever. It seems to be OK in isolated cased, but most goats do very poorly when kept alone. Unless YOU can be the buddy 24/7, it won't work. Pop on over to BackyardHerds, there are more goat keepers there so you can get a much better picture regarding goat keeping.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I agree that more than one goat is a better option (even sheep buddies work!) but having an only goat *may* work for you. I would just be prepared for the strong possibility that you may need to add a companion. The main problem I see is with excessive crying. If you become the friend for the goat, the goat may just cry and cry as soon as you leave it at the barn. This can be stressful for both you and the goat!

 

[Chickie Mama]

Thought I'd take a moment to post an update. My goat, Blarney, has 3 brothers. After building his fence and cleaning out his adjoining barn space, we moved him outside. During the day, our dogs kept him company and in the evening everyone came (Blarney in his crate- during the night). We asked a few of our friends who frequent the local auctions to keep an eye out for a goat companion for Blarney. Well, a few days later we had a calf born. The mother had complications and died (it was very sad). The cow was brought over to Blarney's barn. A few days after that, before we were able to tell our friend that we were no longer in need of another goat, he arrived with 2 small goats. He said we could pick which one we wanted and he would take the other one back in a couple of days. He raises goats for meat so I knew which ever one I did not choose, would eventually go for meat. So I kept both. So now we have Blarney, Clover (the cow), Shamos (the black one) and Amos (the brown one). Good thing we made Blarney's enclosure extra big! LOL