tips

If you are lucky enough to win over the love of a skittish goat, count yourself lucky. Bella is my most skittish goat and will run as fast and as far as her short little legs will take her if anyone comes anywhere near her. But when she is scared or hurting? She looks to me and that is pretty amazing. So if you have a skittish goat, or have a new goat that you are looking to bond with, here is a couple hacks to bond with your goats.

Before we get too far into this, I have a great course on the basics of goat care. I call it Goat Crash Course: Goat 101. In this course, I explain things like types of shelter, types of feeds and hays, basic assessments and so much more! Check it out!

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Bringing Home Your Goat

Before we get into bonding with your goats, I want to first address something. Unless your goat was born on your farm, your new goat is stressed to the max. They were ripped away from their herd, thrust into a box (or car, crate, whatever), and transported to a new farm. Then they were dumped in a fence with new goats and people that they don’t know. If you are bringing home babies? This is the first time without their momma. This goat is freaked out.

So before you thrust yourself on to them and then wonder why they are running away from you, give them some time to just be. Let them figure out where they are, who their new goat friends are, and the pecking order that they are now probably at the bottom of. Let them destress as much as possible. Realistically, this will probably take a couple weeks of regular feeding and treats. It could take longer depending on your goat.

Be prepared to deal with sickness. Whether that is in the form of diarrhea from a change in food, or a worm bloom from stress. Stay on top of their health!

You can get my goat assessment sheet for free by subscribing! The box is near the top of the page.

Bond With Your Goat: The Hacks

There are several different ways to bond with your goats, but at the end of the day it’s really up to your goat. Not every goat will be socialized. Not every goat wants to be around humans. More importantly, not every goat is going to trust humans. But with a little time and effort, you should be able to at least tame your goat enough to know their ticks and maybe, just maybe, get some snuggles.

When we got Bella and V, we realized that we were going to have our work cut out for us with Bella. At first, we thought she was just antisocial and didn’t want anything to do with us. After a while we realized that she was scared of us and didn’t trust us. Every time we had to grab her horns and and force her where we need her to go, it set us back. But what were we supposed to do? We needed to trim her hooves, administer medications and just be able to care for her.

After V died and Bella was alone for a few days, I thought maybe she would start to trust us, but she seemed to distrust us even more. When we got Midas, he became very untrusting towards us because he spent the first two weeks with Bella. Since Bella wouldn’t come near us, neither would Midas. It took about six months before Midas would come near us willingly. So what can you do?

Hack #1:Time

Give them time. Let them decompress and learn that you are safe. Sometimes the best way to do that is to let them see you with your other goats.

Goats are very smart creatures and will see how you treat their herd mates and will judge you accordingly. So be patient.

Also, don’t rush. If you’ve got a spastic child (my Jaxson), maybe don’t let them love on the brand new, completely freaked out goat. If you are spastic (myself), be calm and understanding.

Hack #2: Pin Them Up

I talk about goat basics in my Goat Crash Course: Goat 101, but the biggest thing that we noticed with our new girls was that if we let them run wild in the pen, they would take longer to come around to us.

What we would do is put them on the small side of our barn that is used for laboring moms, moms that just kidded, or when we separate for goat sharing. This would keep them from running away from us and us having to chase them down. For a prey animal, being chased is literally the worse thing you could do.

When you keep them pinned up and bring them food and water, they see you as the giver of delicious nom noms. They also see that you are safe and won’t hurt them.

Hack #3:Treats

Seriously, treats are the best. We get “apple crack”, which is a goat probiotic in pellet form. Even Bella will come running for apple crack. A word of caution. Do not give empty calorie treats like crackers, cookies, etc. These can actually mess up their rumen and that is not good.

But anything can be a treat in moderation. We also give small pieces of apple, carrots, cucumbers, etc. They see it as a treat and it allows us to reinforce that they are safe and we are the bringers of delicious nom noms.

If you don’t have an issue with alcohol, get your goats drunk…. I’m only kind of joking. But the reality is that goats actually benefit from a beer occasionally. It helps their rumen function. Plus, it’s delicious.

Hack #4: Forced Snuggles

I did this with Bella and Spike with mixed success. A lot of people swear by this because it really does work. You basically force the goat to accept your love. The good news it is, it mostly works. Unless you have a Bella.

Bella LOVES to be snuggled when she is stuck in the barn, scared or laboring. If she is outside the barn? She totally forgets that I am a friend and I love her, and will run for the hills. But that’s okay because in the years that I’ve had her? She has become the sweetest snuggler I have. And she willingly gets on the milk stand and will let me love on her when I milk her, so I win.

Spike will tolerate the snuggles but he knows he can over power us very easily so we use caution around him.

Hack #5: Children

This is where that spastic child may actually help you out. Jaxson has no fear. Zero. Our rooster will beat the crap out of him and he comes back for more. It’s the same way with the goats. He doesn’t care if they want his love or not, they are getting it. He has managed to get these goats to realize they are friends, not food.

Children rarely have fear about something they perceive as cute and cuddly. It’s why your kid will randomly show up with a scorpion and you are freaking out and they are asking to keep it….. Ask me how I know.

So let that child man-handle the goat, SAFELY! They will be the best of friends… maybe.

Accepting Defeat When You Try To Bond With Your Goats

If you have tried all of these things and nothing is working, chances are you have a Bella. That goat will probably never come around. We’ve had her for a few years now and we still have to work to get her. You will get there with your goat, but it’s going to take time.

When you have a “normal” goat that wants your affection, those five tips above usually works well. All of our other goats have come around within a month max. But sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes it’ll never happen. That’s okay. You have to keep trying and just try to manage the chaos.

Update For Those Interested

In the years that we have had Bella, she has given birth twice for us. Both times she would cry for my attention. She only allows me and my oldest son to snuggle her newborn babies. She milks beautifully and has become an amazing goat for us. It does take time and effort. I’ve read on so many Facebook pages of people saying get rid of the goat, freezer camp for the goat, etc and it breaks my heart. If we had listened to them, like a lot of new goat owners would, Bella wouldn’t be here. Neither would Ursula or Bebe.

For me, it’s no different than a difficult dog. The animal (regardless of species) is scared. But when you finally gain that trust? You have an animal that truly wants to spend time with you. Let’s you snuggle them and their babies. Brings you their babies. It’s truly amazing.

How do you get your goats to warm up to you?

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What sounds more homestead-y than a wood burning stove? Not much… Well, I would say gathering eggs too. But there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to heating with firewood, before you jump in with both feet. Things like; how much do you need? How are you going to stack it? How do you start a fire in an insert or wood stove? These are all questions I didn’t know I had, till I had them.

If you are new to heating with firewood and are looking to master the finer points of it. We’ve got a great eBook that goes in depth of what tools you should consider, how and where to stack, how to build a fire and so much more!

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I Learned A Lot Our First Year Heating With Firewood

Our fireplace insert is pretty old but still works very well. Unfortunately, it is not very energy efficient. We also learned that when we lose power, we loose the ability to heat our home well. We also have a wood burning furnace in the basement. While it was cool but not cold, we decided to start the furnace to see if it even worked. Boy did it! The boys rooms were 95* before we were able to get the fire out. After some trail and error, we figured out the basics of heating with firewood.

We’ve been heating our home solely with firewood for several years now so this list has changed a ~~bit~~ LOT!

We have since removed the old furnace in the basement since it produced WAY too much heat and ate WAY too much wood. Our wood burning insert in the living room suits us just fine.

1. Cut or buy more wood than you think you’ll need

If it’s your first year, cut double what you think you’ll need. We only cut two cords that first year. By the time the season was over, we had bought two more cords. Thankfully, we had a ton of downed trees on the property that were pretty dry. That allowed us to cut as we needed but having to buy firewood wasn’t on my to do list….until it was.

We still ended up running low and almost out on two separate occasions and of course one of those we had a winter storm baring down on us. Figures.

In the subsequent years, we have learned that having 6 cords of wood on standby is ideal. Do we use 6 cords of wood? Rarely. But having it on standby is a great way to always have a head start on next year’s wood pile.

2. Get a good wood splitter

I love splitting firewood. Whether with an axe or with the splitter, it is incredibly satisfying to see your wood pile grow. Part of it is because you can see the progress of your work. The other part is you know you will be warm that winter.

But you do need a solid wood splitter to get the job done faster. Trust me, after an hour of swinging that axe you will be tired and looking to trade out with someone. There are several kinds out there, but we have an electric splitter. I would prefer gas but with it being 3x to 5x the price? Electric it is.

Our log splitter is smaller and we have to bend over to use it. Jared is tasked with building a table for it because after a while my back and hip start to hurt and I have to walk it off. Still, it beats having to use an axe 100% of the time.

We are also very lucky that our neighbors have a log splitter that they are totally cool with us borrowing. I would recommend saving to purchase your own and we are but thankfully that purchase is lower on the list.

3. Learn how to start a fire

You think I’m joking but you need to learn how to properly start a fire. There is no one way to do it but you still need to know how to do it. You also need to learn how to operate your insert, stove, or fireplace. The basic jist is open your flue and add some sort of starter like paper, leaves, or similar. Light the starter and quickly add small sticks or kindling to it. Then add larger pieces of kindling until you can add a log without putting out the fire.

How I do it, put cardboard on the log holders and a couple small logs that are “scraggly” they are super dry and have little pieces of wood sticking off them. This acts as my kindling. Then I light with our propane torch. Easy peasy. Jared has this whole process of building and building and BUILDING. I’ve go other stuff to do so I choose the easy way.

PS: Our propane torch is this attachment to the camp stove propane bottles. We then refill the camp stove bottles off a big propane tank at the beginning of every fall/winter.

4. Get a pot of water for your stove

A pot of water on the stove allows for you to create humidity. Without it, you will dry out not only your sinuses but it can also damage your home. If you have hard wood floors, or wood paneling like we do, it will cause it to dry, crack, and split.

Thankfully, when we had a cord of wood delivered, I started asking the guy questions because he had heated with wood his entire life. He walked in the house and asked where our water pot was. Before he left, we fixed the problem.

I had no idea that was a thing until I ended up getting really sick. I had a patient that had bronchitis and she coughed on me. Because my sinuses were so dry, there was no mucus. No mucus= no protection from germs.

We have since upgraded to a “fancy” pot so I could have my cooking pots back. We also have a magnetic fan and thermometer. While this may not seem important, and isn’t really necessary, it has helped a lot with monitoring the insert’s temperature AND moving air even if the power is out. I highly recommend both of these things.

5. Storing Your Firewood

Next to cutting or ordering enough, storing your firewood is the most important lesson we learned. I knew that we needed to stack firewood off the ground. Also, I knew that we needed to keep it mostly dry. You should also probably not bring a ton of firewood on your deck or into your house because of bugs.

What I didn’t know was the mess dry wood creates in a house. I didn’t know that you should store your kindling separate. Finally, I didn’t realize that tarping your wood will actually cause to stay wet.

To fix some of these problems I made a wood storage box. It’s not pretty, but it does a fantastic job of making sure that the mess stays in the box. I also have a small ledge behind the lid that we have another box that holds small pieces of kindling. This box has been a lifesaver.

We pulled off the tarp and almost immediately wood that was previously damp, started to dry. We only pulled the tarp over our stack if it was supposed to rain. This helped a ton.

Bonus tip!

Leave a layer of ash in the bottom of your insert! I swear, this was the key to starting fires quickly and keeping those embers warm. It acts as insulation and really helps keep your fireplace at the correct temperatures. I usually keep an inch or two in the bottom when I clean it out between fires. When I need to remove ash, I place it in this bucket until it’s most full and then it goes into the compost pile.

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How To Bond With Your Goats

Bringing Home Your Goat