Hello, goat people.......I need guidance!

[glenolam]

Well...tieing them out in the woods is wicked different from tieing them out in pasture - yes, that's for sure. I sure as heck would never tie a goat out in the woods ALONE and I highly doubt the OP would either.

My comments were aimed at tieing goats in general - it can be done, but just as dogs under supervision.

When I only had 3 goats (OMG...when the heck was that!) I used to take them on daily walks out back on the 10ish acres we were clearing for our cows. We'd spend about an hour or two with the 3 goats out there and they'd help with the brush control. That's a HUGE helper!

 

[ducksngoatsgalore]

Be ready for them to jump on EVERYTHING (vehicles included) So far I have been lucky with my pygmys and have only found them on the six wheeler, the hay stack, my porch, the flat bed trailer, the fenders of the horse trailer and my husbands welding table

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

You've gotten a lot of good advice so far, but i'll throw in my two cents anyhow.

We have three Nigerian Dwarf goats. They are so cute, and smart, and loads of fun. Goats definitely need other goat friends. It doesn't work to get them friends of other species, they really need at least another of their own kind. That way they can head bunt and do all the things that make them happy. Our three are almost always within a few feet of each other.

It sounds like you have a large property. For us on our half acre, we have had to fortify the fences. We have regular good neighbor fencing all the way around. But had to add additional fencing as the goats were eating everything on the perimeter of our property. So we added fencing about 20 feet in from the perimeter fencing, to save some of our privacy bushes. i initially opted for cheap fencing - huge mistake! Billy learned to walk up and over that stuff or push it right over. So we have needed to add fortification on a fairly regular basis as he figures out how to escape. We also had to fence them off our patio area as they do love to be high, so jump up on anything they can, including our spa.

If you find a good vet, they can teach you to trim hooves or give shots. You also need to worm them twice a year. But there are a lot of good sites that talk about that.

Good luck with your new goats. They are wonderful little critters that will steal their way into your heart.

 

[Mzyla]

Quote:
Ha...ha...How very true! they can jump and walk on a narrowest piece of something...
My started "car jumping" as well, to the point where I had to discipline them with some small stick spanking.
Now when I only wave the little stick, they know what it means and are running away from the vehicles.

On a good note: when they have their required activity and when their tummies are full, then they go to sleep for hours....just like human babies

 

[glenolam]

Quote:
That's really something that, IMO, leads to great debate. I don't worm/deworm unless it's necessary. In the beginning, I was one that dewormed "on a schedule" every three months. I debated that I was helping my goats by treating them "preventatively".

However, after researching and ultimately just stopping worming on a schedule, I realized that - for me anyway - by NOT deworming I was forcing my goats to build their own resistants to worms (similar to kids/humans building resistance towards colds and such). I read that if you deworm on a schedule, you'll kill off the weakest worms but allow the stronger ones to build a tolerance and, ultimately, a resistance to the drugs and in the end create worms/parasites that just won't die.

I am currently deworming my goats, but that's because a fecal sample I brought to my vet showed that the worm load was greater than I was comfortable with...you could say moderatly high. If it was low or slightly moderate, I'd just let the goat figure it out and let the worms run their course. But since it wasn't, I decided to kill off as many as I could before it got really bad.

Later this week I'll bring some samples in again and if everything comes up clear or light, that's it for worming until I think they need to be checked again.


Purely JMO