A Hobbyist’s Introduction to: Goats

Goats are a fun addition to any farm. Not only do they make great pets, but they can also be a productive, useful animal to have around. There are basically three types of goats: meat goats, dairy goats and goats that are used primarily for their wool. Before adding to your menagerie of farm animals, it’s a good idea to think about your purpose for raising goats. Knowing your purpose and goals for keeping goats will help you in determining what breed of goat is best for your farm. After all, there are in excess of 200 different goat breeds, and a goat can live upwards of 15 years or more, so it is a long term commitment.

(Left) Adult female goat, (Right) Young child with goat kid
Rose turned 14 years old in August.
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Dealing With the Loss of a Pet

Loss is a fact of life on a farm. A baby goat dies during birth, a dog in her prime contracts leukemia, the Houdini rabbit escapes and gets run over by a car and the matriarch hen succumbs to old age. Death and loss are just facts of life. Death is not a respecter of age or breed or our hard work. You have to figure that if you have animals, eventually you’re going to encounter some form of loss. 

Chicken eating apple
The old matriarch who recently succumbed to the ravages of old age.
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Keeping Your Goats Warm

My very first goats were sibling Pygmy goats, Bonnie and Clyde. We lived in Arizona at the time, so I never really worried about keeping them warm during the winter. I think they actually enjoyed the coolness of a season that wasn’t hot! When my boys were young we moved to a rural town in central Utah where the winters were a little colder and included snow! Our neighbors showed dairy goats in 4-H and my oldest son enjoyed helping them bottle feed the kids, and get the goats ready for shows. That’s when our goat herd expansion began. Daisy, a Saanen yearling was first, followed by Spring and Jasmine, Nubian sisters who were bottle babies. Rose was two days old when we got her and then we got a buck to try our hand at breeding. And so the adventure continued. Now, the boys are grown, the goats are old, and the winters are still cold.

Boy with young goat (kid)
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