what is the purpose of keeping goats

[boykin2010]

ok well how many hair sheep would YOU keep per acre? the grass grows really fast i have to cut it every week.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

I would put no more then 5 per 3 acres. You need to let the grass have regrowth time, otherwise you end up with dead and unhealthy areas very quickly.
Read through pasture care on this blog. Its EXCELLENT!
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/

 

[dkvart1]

When my girls were young we were going to visit a friend of ours who lived on a farm (we lived in Missouri at the time on 1 acre w/a small fenced back yard) and they took my friend some glads from my garden, in return she gave them a baby goat. Rosie slept in the dog house with Scruffy our dog until we were able to build a proper pen for her against the tiny barn on our property.

She would get ticked off because we would let the dog in the house, but not her. After about two weeks of looking in the dining room window at us and voicing her protest, she climbed over the fence and went to the front door and knocked.... okay head butted... the only way we could get her back into the back yard was let her walk through the house.... she looked in all the rooms, then docily went back to the yard.

She would do this about every 4 or 5 days... until we built a fence she couldn't scale. The neighbors (and the kids school bus driver) got a kick out of seeing her sitting on the front porch waiting to get in. Unfortuantly she taught the dog to climb the fence and unlike the goat the dog would run away!!! got a few citations from local animal control... but wouldn't have traded that goat for anything. She played tag with the kids, played w/ the dog and every morning at sunrise had a chat over the fence with my neighbor and her 80 year old mother. I can't wait til we have our place and can get a goat or two.. not for milk (that's more work than I wanna do)... just for the joy of having them around!

 

[Alabama ee]

We bought our Barbadoes sheep from a friend. I would start with 1 ram and the rest female. They have young twice a year. Many times when they birth they have twins. So it does not take long to build a herd.

 

[boykin2010]

ok something really weird happened. i went on google and typed in hair sheep for sale in georgia and it turns out there is a major breeding farm of katahdin hair sheep right down the road from me!!! and you gotta understand i live in a small town with litterally 5 redlights. they want 200 - 250 per sheep. does that seem like a lot to you? just wondering but they have all these certificates and stuff that come with them.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

5 red lights is small? I miss having one. Didn't need it then.

 

[Jasmine1998]

Quote:
You might consider getting sheep instead.
Plus, if you are going to get livestock, you MUST do all that is needed to defend, protect and care for them.
That includes proper fencing so no dogs will get in. Neither goats or sheep can defend themselves, especially sheep. thats why they require a shepherd.

I would also advise lots more research, and holding off on getting a cow. They are much harder to take care of.

We have fainting goats. Even the sight of our rooster sometimes makes them go down so we definitely have to keep ours fenced in if we are not going to be right out there with them.

 

[gofasterstripe]

I have Boer goats, people sell them for meat. Me, I got them to save them from the meat man.

Tilly, Feebee, Chazwick

Jack and Sassy when they were little

Chaz eating the plums off the tree

 

[oldchickenlady]

A donkey is good protection from coyotes or dogs. It will run predators off and protect your goats. It would have to be a grown one though, to offer protection against predators.

 

[gofasterstripe]

Quote:

I also have a mule, she is sweet as can be. I was going to put her in with my goats but kept her in with my minis for a few days. When the goats came up to the fence to inspect said Mule, she went for them. So neadless to say she stayed with the minis. She will run off an bird in her pasture, jump the fence to get the neighbors dog, chases my cats and chases the ducks on the opposit side of the fence. She has even run a deer out the pasture and jumped the fence after it.