Top Mistakes With Goats

We all know that I love my goats. Probably more than most people. They are seriously the coolest creatures on our farm. But there are some very common mistakes with goats that I would love to clear up today. I’ve talked before about goats not being beginner livestock and I will say it again and again. Before you get into goats, lets learn somethings about them.

Most Common Mistakes With Goats

Goats Are Easy To Take Care Of

They are NOT the easiest thing to take care of. In fact, far from it! Out of all of my animals, the chickens are the easiest not the goats. We are constantly battling worms in the summer. Getting them through winter tends to be iffy if they had a ton of worms in the summer. Spring is kidding season. I think the only “safe” season is fall but we are still dealing with bucks in rut, worms, and feed.

We are currently battling coccidia with our kids and are trying like hell to keep everyone healthy. But unfortunately, summer in Georgia is a goat killer. Between the heat, worms, forage issues? It’s stressful. One of the ways that we combat the worms is by only worming when necessary. That includes coccidia. But summer is a scary time for us. Another way is pasture rotation and free ranging.

You Can Get One Goat

Goats are herd and prey animals. In order to feel safe and happy, they need other goats to hang out with. Without having a companion, they will get depressed, lonely, and will not thrive. Do yourself a favor and get two.

When we lost V and Bella was our only goat for two days, she literally Houdinied us every couple of hours. I don’t even remember how many times she took off. Finally, we had to tether her because she wouldn’t stay in the pin. As soon as we got Midas in with her? She never broke out again **knocks on all the wood**

While on the topic of only getting one goat, do yourself a favor and get two goats whenever you are bringing new goats into your herd. We have always brought home at least two goats every time we purchase new stock. The last time, we didn’t. Poor Phoenix doesn’t have anyone that will play with her. She is a lone goat in the herd because everyone is already paired up. Thankfully, she is a pocket goat and really just wants our attention. Which is fine, except we can’t always be out there with her.

You don’t HAVE to do this, but it does help transition if there is another new goat to buddy up with.

Goats Can Eat Anything

No. Just no. I saw a post on Marketplace a couple days ago for last years hay. Good for mulching, raised beds, or goats…. Excuse me? I can promise you, if you feed that kind of hay to your goats, they will die. Period. Moldy, old, dirty, hay will kill your goat. They really need horse quality hay because they can get sick so easily. Let’s not mention that they cannot eat a tin can.

When we got Oakley and Bailey, then Spike, Jade, and Sapphire, they got into mountain laurel. Thankfully, we were able to pull them through but it was touch and go for a minute. There are tons of toxic plants to them, and usually they are good about not eating it. But they are very curious creatures.

Goats Are Stupid

These creatures are more intelligent than dogs. They are also incredibly curious, which gets them into a ton of trouble. Champ knows how to get into pasture two, where she doesn’t belong. We have tried various ways to keep her out but none of them work. So she ends up in pasture two. A lot.

All of the goats know that if they scream loud enough, for long enough, they will get extra grain and alfalfa in the mornings. So no, they are not stupid.

We have trained our goats to feed buckets in case of a break out. We’ve trained them to a dinner bell like this, if they are too far away to hear the bucket. Goats are incredibly smart.

No Fence Will Hold A Goat

This is borderline when it comes to goats. I have noticed that if they are kept fat and happy they will probably not try to escape. BUT if they want something on the other side of the fence? They are going to go get it. We manage to keep two bucks from the girls simply by making sure that the fence is secure and they have a buddy.

There are some goats that cannot be contained without resorting to tethering. While that is not ideal, especially if you have high predator loads, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. We had to tether Bella until she became more comfortable with us. We also had to tether Midas because he was so stressed out when we brought him home.

Goats Only Eat Weeds

Not true! Goats prefer browse, which is plants with woody stems. However, goats are actually Growsers, meaning they will graze and browse. They will eat weeds, trees, hay, grasses, fruit, veggies, etc. Just like you prefer certain foods, so do they.

It is important to pay attention to what they are avoiding though. If you have a patch of some sort of weed, and the goats are eating everything but that weed, go ahead and remove that weed. It’s probably something that they shouldn’t eat.

Goats Are Not Intuitive Eaters

This is a pretty hot button topic among most goat owners. It’s kind of like the deworming or disbudding argument, you’ve got people for and against it. In that vein, I’m going to give you my opinion and experience, you do with it what you will.

My goats are intuitive eaters. If they have access to plenty of forage, they will not touch toxic plants like Mountain Laurel, Beefsteak plant, and Rhododendrons. But as soon as forage starts to die back and only toxic plants are available, they may start to eat it.

This goes for minerals as well. There is a huge debate about whether or not you should have free choice loose mineral or a mineral buffet. We’ve done both and have found that our goats will clear out entire buckets of one or two minerals and leave the rest alone. So again, I do think that goats are intuitive eaters.

Unfortunately, we do not have the time, space or set up to really have an effective mineral buffet, so we went back to free choice loose minerals.

These Are Just A Few Of The Mistakes I’ve Noticed

There are many, many more mistakes with goats but those are the biggest ones that I feel need to be addressed. I know that I have a ton of different posts about goats and sound like a broken record, but these really are important.

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