Woven Wire
Most of the fencing for our Nigerian Dwarf herd is made of woven wire. It is less expensive than welded wire and does not need to be replaced as often because the wires are wrapped around each other rather than welded together. However, a fence stretcher is required to install this fencing. If you are going to use this fencing with bucks and it will be the only fence between bucks and does, you will need to have a single strand of electric fencing running along the fence about a foot off the ground to keep the buck from trying to mate does through the fence. Woven wire is quite stretchy, and I once saw a buck almost succeed in mating a doe that was standing on the other side of the fence. His head and two front hooves were sticking through the fence, and his body had stretched out the fencing over the doe’s back. Although my buck was unsuccessful, I know people who have had a buck succeed in mating through the fence.
Because goats like to put their front hooves on fencing, welded wire fences tend to fall apart within only a couple of years. Note that this particular fence is not tall enough to keep this doe from going into the garden. A few minutes after this photo was taken, she jumped the fence.
Woven wire also needs to be paired with electric wire to keep standard-sized dairy goats contained. A strand about a foot off the ground as well as one a few inches above the top of the tallest woven wire should do the trick. However, there are no guarantees. I used to have a LaMancha buck that would jump up and mash down a woven wire fence, even when there was an electric strand over the top. He had started smashing the fence before we put the electric wire above it, and he was willing to put up with the shock after the electric was added. If the electric wire is installed with the woven wire, the goats will check it out and probably get shocked, which will cause them to leave the fence alone in the future. Had our buck not known that he was capable of smashing a fence, he probably would not have continued doing so when we added the electric.
Wood
Many of us have bucolic visions of a split rail fence on our homesteads. Unfortunately, this type of fence is pretty much worthless with goats. The rails would need to be extremely close together to prevent kids from escaping, but because the rails are thick, placing them close together creates a fence that is easy for a goat to climb over. Although a six-foot wood privacy fence would work, it is a very expensive option and not worth it since there are other less expensive options that also work well. Keep in mind that you will have to fence in an area much larger than the average suburban backyard, which is where this type of fencing is typically used.
Goats are convinced that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so unless you pair woven wire with electric, you will probably find them sticking their heads through the fence to eat the grass on the other side.
When Bucks Fly
Regardless of which type of fencing you use for your bucks, be sure that you do not have anything close to the fence that the buck can use as a launching pad to get himself over the fence. Years ago, I heard of a man who was trying to figure out how his buck was getting out of an area fenced with six-foot chain link when one day he saw the buck get a running start, jump on his shelter, and then catapult himself over the fence.
Livestock Guardians
Good fences are absolutely essential, not only to keep your goats where you want them but also to keep predators away. However, even the best fence may prove inadequate when a predator gets desperate enough, which is why many people have a livestock guardian. One or more dogs, llamas, or donkeys typically fill the role of guardian.
Dogs
Although dogs may be the first species most of us consider as a livestock guardian, and they can prove the most useful, they can also be the most troublesome. As “man’s best friend,” dogs such as the Great Pyrenees in France and the Anatolian Shepherd in Turkey have been guarding livestock for centuries. In addition to fighting off larger predators such as bears and mountain lions, dogs scare off or kill smaller predators such as raccoons, which probably won’t hurt your goats but are always looking for a tasty chicken dinner. Dogs can also serve as a deterrent to humans who may want to steal your livestock or come into your pasture when you are not around. Many goat breeders have heart-warming stories about a livestock guardian dog that saved their animals from a predator or cleaned up goat kids that were born unexpectedly in a pasture.
Our own Anatolian Shepherd let us know when one of our bucks was very sick, and we were able to nurse him back to health. If the dog had not been standing next to the buck’s shelter barking at us, we probably would not have found the goat until it was too late. Lucy, our Great Pyrenees, also cleaned up a goat kid that was born unexpectedly in a snow-covered pasture.
“I had an Anatolian named Jazz that knew when the does were in labor before the does did,” recalls Penny Oldfather of Illinois. “She would lie or sit next to a doe and let you know she was next. She cleaned off many kids and kept them warm.”
“I was babysitting a pair of heavily pregnant goats due to kid in some seriously cold weather in an open three-sided shed,” recalls Shelene Costello. “Temps were around zero, windchills around 30 below. I just went out and checked them and came back in to sleep a bit. Puppy Artic started to raise Cain. I went out to see what the ruckus was, and he was at the fence staring into the goat pen. Sure enough, cold wet babies. But in time to prevent frostbite to any of them. Good puppy. Now as a mature male, he, along with his younger sister and best working bud, spend their days and nights guarding my stock. One goes out with the poultry when they go out to the fields to graze, and one stays home with the rest of the stock. They have killed lots of smaller varmints and run off the coyotes, bobcats, as well as winged predators.”
Unfortunately, there are also stories of dogs injuring and killing goats. I was told about an inexpensive German Shepherd mix that was bought to be put with the goats on a farm. Before long the dog was chewing on kids’ ears and had even bitten off a couple, so the family put him in a pasture with only adult goats. One day they found him eating a kid that had somehow slipped into the pasture where he was tied. Stories like this are, unfortunately, all too common, as are stories of the beloved family pet that didn’t understand it was not supposed to “play” with the goats.
Although we always had rescue dogs as pets, we had to learn the hard way that livestock guardians are very different from pets. They have a job to do protecting the animals on your farm, and just as you would not hire a completely incompetent person to do a job, you should not get a dog to work as a livestock guardian unless the breed has centuries of livestock experience behind it. It is also a good idea to buy a dog from a farm where it has been living with livestock since the day it was born.
In addition to not hurting your goats, a dog that has lived with goats its entire life will know how to interact with them, which also makes it safer for the dog. When we brought home Lucy, a Great Pyrenees that had spent the first three months of her life on a goat dairy, she was very confident around the goats without appearing aggressive. When a doe tried to butt her, she immediately dropped to the ground, which showed the goat that she was not a threat, and it also protected her from the goat. As she dropped to the ground, the goat’s head went through the air above her body rather than slamming into her. I heard a story of one puppy that didn’t have that knowledge that wound up with a broken leg the day it was brought home and put in the pasture with a flock of sheep.
Do not confuse herding dogs, such as border collies, with guardian breeds. Herding dogs have a nonstop drive to chase animals, which is completely different from the normal behavior of a guardian breed. Although some breeders say that English Shepherds are dual purpose and can be good guardians, it is primarily a herding breed, and many are far too active to be left alone with livestock until they are older.
Commgon Livestock Guardian Dog Breeds
▶ Akbash
▶ Anatolian Shepherd
▶ Great Pyrenees
▶ Komondor
▶ K
uvasz
▶ Maremma
When looking for a livestock guardian dog, be sure to get one that has been socialized. Some people are under the mistaken impression that livestock guardian dogs should not be handled as puppies. But this means that you wind up with a dog that is nearly feral and challenging or even impossible to handle. I’ve seen people in social media groups talk about giving their dog a sedative to knock it out so they can take it to the vet because they can’t handle it when it’s conscious. It should go without saying that a dog like this can be dangerous to its owners, as well as visitors to the farm. Even though our livestock guardians have all been well socialized and are accepting of people we bring into the pasture, they bark loudly to let us know when a stranger stops on the road outside a pasture or pulls into our driveway.
A livestock guardian dog should always be introduced to new stock while it is on a lead. There is no way of predicting how the dog will respond, so you want to be able to maintain control at all times.
Llamas
If coyotes are the main predator in your area, you might consider a llama or two as guardians. An advantage of llamas is that they eat the same things as goats, so feeding them is not a separate chore, as it is with a dog, and you don’t have to worry about the goats eating the dog’s food. You will, however, have to have the llama sheared annually so that it doesn’t overheat in its long coat over the summer.
An intact male should never be used as a guardian for goats because it may try to mate does when they are in heat. Because the male llama lies on top of the female during mating, it will wind up crushing a female goat.
Llamas protect livestock from coyotes through a variety of techniques. Unlike most prey animals, llamas tend to be more curious than cautious. Rather than running away from strange things, they often run towards them. And because coyotes are small and rather cowardly, they will generally run away when they see something six feet tall running towards them. If a coyote does decide to engage a llama, the llama will stomp and bite the coyote. Llamas have fighting teeth — four canines that can rip and tear flesh. Fighting teeth are generally removed on male llamas because of the damage they can do to each other, but these teeth are left on females because they fight only when being attacked.
We added llamas to our farm after we lost almost all of our lambs to coyotes one year. We know the llamas stopped an attack on a ram and another on a turkey hen. Considering how much our losses decreased after adding the llamas, we feel certain they thwarted the attempts of many coyotes.
We once found a female llama in the middle of a frozen creek, unable to stand up because of the slippery ice. There were canine paw prints around her and blood in the snow, but we couldn’t find any injuries on her. We can only assume that a coyote thought he had found an easy meal when he spotted her down on the ice, but she did a good job of protecting herself.
I have occasionally heard of someone selling alpacas as livestock guardians, but alpacas are generally too small and timid to be effective. In fact, llamas often serve as guardians for alpacas.
If you have a lot of white-tailed deer on your property, you may not want to invest in llamas because of the risk of meningeal worm, which is mentioned in Chapter Seven: Injury, Illnesses, and Diseases. Although m-worm is rare in goats, it is very common in llamas. In fact, after seven years of owning and breeding llamas to guard our livestock, we lost all of them to m-worm within a few months. We ultimately realized they all started dying about six months after our Anatolian Shepherd died. He hated deer and would bark at them if they were far off on the horizon, effectively keeping them off our farm. Our replacement guardian dog didn’t have the same reaction.
Donkeys
Donkeys are another option for guarding goats if coyotes or dogs are the main predators. Like llamas, they have a diet similar to goats. However, coccidiostats can be fatal if consumed by equines, so goat minerals or a feed that contains a coccidia preventive needs to be placed in an area that is inaccessible to the donkey.
Donkeys will also stomp and bite coyotes, and although they don’t have canine teeth, they can do a lot of damage when their strong jaws clamp down on a coyote’s leg. In fact, we once had a donkey that bit my daughter and left a four-inch bruise across her shoulder blade.
As with many intact males, it can be challenging to deal with intact donkeys. A male donkey is technically a “jack ass,” and after having one for a few months, we understood why that phrase has such a negative connotation. If you want a donkey as a guardian, it is best to get a female or a gelded male.
PART II
Raising, Remedies, and Reproduction
Although some people would classify the information in this section as “management,” I like to think of it as working with my goats. Some might say that the difference between the two is simply semantic, but I have seen a shift in my own “management” style over the years. “Managing” implies the goat keeper has control, and you will never have complete control over living things. There are simply too many variables and too many unknowns, and you will be disappointed as long as you think you can control everything. Working with your goats requires a different attitude. Although some management practices work some of the time, you have to understand goats and their needs to get the best results.
Hopefully, by the end of this section, it will become clear that management practices must be different from farm to farm and even goat to goat because every farm and every goat is different. Working with my goats is different from working with any other herd because no one else has the same combination of animal genetics, well water, and availability of hay — important variables that will be fully explained in this section.
Working with my goats also means I give them most of the credit whenever anyone compliments our cheese, yogurt, or soap. Without their hard work giving birth annually and producing milk for ten months of every year, I wouldn’t have the basic ingredient to make all of those products.
CHAPTER 4
DAY-TO-DAY LIFE WITH GOATS
Living with goats is a continual adventure in animal husbandry, psychology, and the culinary arts. Every goat is unique, and as my daughter once said, even if we owned goats for a hundred years, we would still be learning. Each goat’s milk is different, and each has a different immune system and a different way of giving birth. Personalities are also different not only from one goat to another but, depending on whether the goat is interacting with her own kids, other goats in the herd, or humans. One of the most common questions asked by new goat owners is, “Is that normal?” This section will attempt to explain “normal” as much as possible. As you read it, however, keep in mind that there is great variation in what constitutes normal from one goat to another.
Behavior
Goats have been domesticated for thousands of years, but as with most domesticated animals, their degree of friendliness will depend on how much they are handled as babies. Just as cats can revert to a feral state in one generation if born in a place where they get no human interaction, goats will also be wild if not handled as babies. Some people think that goats need to be bottle-fed to be friendly, but the reality is that they simply need attention, and bottle-feeding certainly means that kids will get attention every day. Basically, the more kids are handled — whether you give them a bottle three times a day or sit in the straw and play with them three times a day — the less fear they will have of humans. And some goats will simply be friendlier than others from the beginning. I noticed early in my goat keeping that friendlier mothers had friendlier babies, and more ornery mothers had more skittish babies.
There is also a genetic component to personality, and in fact, there is a genetic test for cattle that tells you their predisposition to being calm and to producing calm offspring. According to Igenity, a company that does this kind of testing, docility is an important trait for the beef industry because calm cattle eat better, gain weight better, are healthier, and have more tender meat than those that are nervous and less calm.3 I have
noticed even in my goats that some of the adults that were dam raised are easier to handle than some that were bottle-fed as babies.
What I Learned from Coco
In our second kidding season, we wound up with our first two bottle-fed kids. The first one had hypothermia and was too weak to stand or nurse, and the second one nearly starved to death when she was two weeks old because she had difficulty competing with her three brothers for the dam’s two teats. I initially called her PeeWee because she was so tiny, but after a couple of weeks, I realized she was going to survive and gave her a real name — Coco Chanel. Her mother was a difficult goat to handle and did not like being milked. I sold her when Coco was a couple of years old. Although Coco was bottle-fed and is incredibly friendly, she can be incredibly stubborn and quickly taught us that bottle-feeding a kid does not guarantee a goat that is always easy to handle.
My daughters enjoyed showing goats in the early years, and Coco was often the most difficult goat to show. She would plant her feet as if they were stuck in concrete and refuse to move! Other times she would prance around the show ring like a diva! For her entire life, it was a challenge most of the time to lead her from one place to another. However, if I went out to the barn or pasture and sat on the ground, Coco would crawl into my lap just like she did so many times when she was a baby.
Raising Goats Naturally Page 7