Goats and Fencing

Whenever somebody wonders about whether or not a goat is an animal they might like to get, the issue that will require considerable thought, is fencing. Fencing is expensive, and is often the main factor that puts people off getting goats. You may need something about a metre and a half high, with heavy duty stock fence wiring, round posts at very frequent intervals, and an electric wire along the top. Jumping and climbing are a goats favourite pastime, and of course, the term 'the grass is always greener on the other side' is at the forefront of a goats brain.

The are a few things you can do to help deter the goat from indulging in the great escape. Always make sure they have ample food .... fresh water, ad lib hay, the odd branch. Give them things to scramble and climb on. Ours have steps up the back of their shelter, and we give them tree stumps and planks.

Some goats are more prone to climbing and jumping than others. A determined billy can jump over just about anything if theres a female within range. Dairy breeds and goats with close feral relations are taller and more likely to climb, meat goats are heavier and more docile. Its said that angora are also more docile and less likely to climb. My goats have angora in them, and I'm lucky so far that a 4 strand electric fence seems to do the trick. Most of the time.

Grass must be kept in check in order to prevent an electric fence from earthing, and thus losing its charge and becoming useless. It doesn't take long for a goat to find out a fence is not working! For us, this means bringing the lawn mower into the field and mowing along the fence line. We use the grass clippings as a mulch under the fence to slow down the grass growth.

We also rotate our goats paddock every six weeks or so. During the summer, the whole family is recruited to help!

The other thing little ones like to help with is the milking. Theres a fine balance in deciding when to let the smalls have a go towards the end of the procedure, and then calling a halt to it before the goat gets peeved off and puts her foot in the jug!

Comments

[Wild Rose]

Hi Rebecca

What an interesting post. Your goats obviously enjoy climbing and perfecting their escape techniques!

I have nominated you for the Blogger Reflection Award. See my blog for more details.

Marie x

[hedgewizard]

Ah yes, that fence line's a bugger, isn't it? We have to fence the chickens in (actually it's more a case of keeping the fox out), and grass under the fence is really annoying. Eventually I opted to run a 60cm-wide strip of old carpet round the perimeter and tread the fence posts through it, and so far it's worked fine.

[debra]

We are spending the week at our County Fair, and I have many friends in the goat barn. There are some dwarf Nigerian kids that are so tiny they step out of the fences around their pens.
We had a Nubian whether as companion for my daughter's horse. He was a rescue (our daughters used to call our place Second Chance Farm), and had many quirks. My oldest daughter used to put a harness on him and ride him.
Lovely photos. Thanks for sharing them

[Alex]

That's more like the shelter I had in mind. I just saw one on a US site that was 15 feet high at the front, had doors and windows. Terrifying. Do you milk outside or somewhere else? I'm thinking of attaching a goat shelter to a horse field shelter to save on one wall - and keep the horse company...