Taking care of a goat?
Question by : Taking care of a goat?
We were thinking of getting a goat, and we have horses it would live with. Do they need to be kept indoors in the winter? And would it even get along with the horses? Basically if anyone would just care to share what it is like to own a goat, more as a pet, not being raised for meat or anything, that would be fantastic.
Wow kinda put this in the wrong section but w.e lol
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
6 Responses to Taking care of a goat?
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They will need shelter like the horses. The people I know who have had goats and horses have never had problems with them getting along. Some stables keep them to calm nervous horses (kind of a pet for the horse).
Goats climb everything–it is not unusual to find them on the roofs of barns. Some are bad about climbing fences. They can be fun to have but also can be a lot of work. see the site below for more
J Alves
June 14, 2014 at 4:45 am
You need to be careful with goats in the cold they get pneumonia much easier than a horse. Also I had a goat that thought my horses tails were a french delicacy. They were very much fun except when they got out of their pen (which they did fequently but the Border collie’s instincts kicked in for us). My cousins and my brothers and I loved them and Rudy thought he was a lapdog and loved to lay on your lap in the sun being pet. While Rockie was a clown. It is all preference in the owner and each goat like a horse has their own personality.
Brandy
June 14, 2014 at 5:03 am
We have a pygmy goat buck – uncastrated male, he’s about a year old.
Do NOT get a buck.
He will try to mount anything, people, horses, dogs, hay bales. Plus he stinks, during rutting he pees all overhimself (makes him attractive to the ladies) and onto his beard, which makes his small more potent.
Now that the breeding season is over he’s grand now, has calmed down a lot.
I would suggest you get a female of a castrated male, bucks are just too hard to keep, and they are not pets.
They are nice though, out fella is a pygmy, and he’s out on stud bless him, he’s tiny, barely gets up to me knees, pity about his fondness for raping ….
Jenny
June 14, 2014 at 5:51 am
Goats and horses usually get along fine.The eat the same and can use whatever type shelter you have for your horses.I have a nanny goat I keep with my mini’s just so when I wean babies they don’t stress as bad.
Jo Gonzales
June 14, 2014 at 5:53 am
Goats are often recommended as companion animals for lone horses or ponies. However, you need to be careful.
Firstly don’t have a billy goat (ie a male goat) – they stink to high heaven and can be a pest. Nanny goats obviously do not produce milk unless they are allowed to become pregnant so you won’t have that advantage.
Goats eat anything whether they are hungry or not. I have known a goat eat part of the rug that its companion horse was wearing!
They also climb. Anything, even if you think it impossible! I used to pass a house on my way to school where a goat was tethered in the garden under a tree which had a very slight slope to its trunk – only a very few degrees out of the perpendicular. Many were the times that I passed the garden and the goat was up in the branches of the tree!
What about a sheep? They aren’t very bright but are generally better behaved than goats. Horses don’t seem to have a problem with them and as an extra advantage they can help keep the horse worm burden in the pasture under control as they crop grass fairly short and gobble up the worm eggs which don’t affect them. You do need to keep an eye on their feet though.
HENRIETTA
June 14, 2014 at 6:08 am
I used to raise goats for 4-H (market and dairy) and they’re fun and pretty easy. They do not need to be kept indoors, but they do need shelter of some sort. As someone else said, they are capable of climbing things and also of slipping under fences, so make sure that your fence is goat-proof (we used three-board wooden fence with chicken wire over it. We did have one goat escape in all the years we did it–about ten–but he was also wild and was by himself, and managed to climb up the fence).
Goats do need their own “goat” feed. Feeding anything with corn (if I remember correctly) makes them extremely prone to kidney stones, which are already one of the biggest problems we faced (and no vet around here would work on them–the two that tried both had the goat die on the operating table and refused to work on another one). Wethers (castrated males) are more prone to kidney stones than does or bucks. In my experiences, the cheap, mixed breed “brush” goats were always healthier and sturdier than the more expensive, well-bred full blooded show goats.
You may want to dehorn the goat (remove horns) so that there’s no chance of it hurting a horse. Choose a goat that’s either still a baby so you can spend time around it (but don’t put it with a horse until it’s a little bigger) or has already been around people. You want one that is friendly, not wild, and you don’t want one that is aggressive. Bucks (non-castrated males) are most likely to be aggressive. We had one that was so bad you couldn’t enter his pen without a whip to keep him away, because he’d charge you and pin you against a fence. But there are plenty that are cute and friendly and make great pets.
LopeSlow
June 14, 2014 at 6:38 am