5 Things I Never Knew Before Getting Goats
A year ago, I got two goats. Originally, our two goats were sisters - Scrapper and Crota. And then, after a little over a month of having these sweet girls, one of them, Scrapper, was attacked by a dog (not ours) and she died. It was a difficult day.
Crota was our loan goat for many months until we got Nora on the Fourth of July, and for this past year, I have learned a lot about owning goats. Besides the fact that goats are amazing pets, here are 5 things that I have learned.
Goats can get out of just about anything! They climb, they pull apart fencing, they are just sneaky little boogers. We have gone through many iterations of their pen, and what we have finally landed on that works well is a 6.5' tall dog steel dog pen fencing.
They are really picky eaters. They say that goats will eat anything. Well, yes, that is the case, but that doesn't mean they will. Goats need a steady diet of hay and there is goat pellets that will give them much of the other nutrients they need. Additionally, goat mineral is important to give to them daily. But goats love a lot of fun treats as well - be careful to not give them too many because they will soon shun the healthy food and only ask for the treats. I know this from experience folks! Treats you can give them are blueberries, blackberries, grapes, banana peels, and carrot tops. They also like radish, but I have found mine only like the tops or small radish. Sweet cob is a great treat. We went through a period of time after Scrapper died where Crota stopped eating. We began doing sweet cob to entice her to eat something... it backfired a bit, and she stopped wanting anything else. Through a little tough love helped with the introduction of a new goat, we have gotten back to where sweet cob is a treat and not the base of her food nutrition.
You should always have goats in pairs, but introducing a new partner is just as challenging as introducing a new cat to your kitty household. When we introduced Nora to Crota, we thought they would immediately love each other. That was not the case. The fighting through head butting was intense and relentless, and we have to separate them for months. Then we had an atmospheric river predicted for our area, which was supposed to bring 7" of rain in one 24 hour period. The pen that Nora was in had a less than adequate shelter for such a rain. We had to place them in the same pen in a short amount of time. Their pens had been right next to each other, so introducing them again together was a little easier, and the head butting only happened for about an hour before the hierarchy was established. Nora is still more of a bully to Crota - but they live relatively in harmony and play more than fight these days.
The really do love to play. Whether it's with their human counterparts or a goat partner, the playfulness of goats is infectious. Sometimes we like to just let them run around the barn, and they do funny little "binky" jumps here and there. They are just such a delight when they are playful.
In some cases, they are even better than dogs. We walk our goats regularly, and like dogs, sometimes they are stubborn, and pull forward or backward, but in general, they are better on the leash than our rescue dog is. They are loving and bond easily with their humans.
I hope that if you are on the fence of owning goats, these tips might help before you take that plunge.
