Goats

Even though we no longer have goats I wanted to discuss the time we did. Back in the summer of 2010, we bought 10 goats, mostly all Boar or boar cross. The reason was to begin reclamation of pastures that were overgrown with briars and Multiflora Rose. It sounded like a good idea in the beginning; get the goats on the pastures needing to be recovered and put the sheep on the good stands to begin the basis of our sheep and lamb operation. Well that quickly went by the wayside as we found that goats are not sheep (there's a surprise), and goats need strong fence.

We would put up five wires of low tensile wire and polywire around a given area, usually two to three acres, and within a few days to a week we had goats out of the pasture and at the house. What we found out the hard way, as goat farmers know, is that goats like to graze a wide area and become very bored with where they are in a short time. Also, the old saying goes, “take a bucket of water and throw it at the fence and there is where the goat will get out,” and boy was that true. Each time a goat got out I would chase it down and bring back to the paddock; at times it seemed like this was my full time job. I add additional grounding rods so the wire always had the highest voltage (8,000) going through and this made little difference, they just plowed right through.

By the spring of 2012, Beth had had enough and was ready to get rid of them, but I was beginning to get them under control…I thought. Plus in January 2011, we kidded and an attachment took root in me. But circumstances changed. My father took ill and I had to go to my parents home for about week, and no sooner did I drive down the road did the goats, all of them, bust through the wire and saunter right out in the middle of the road to sun. Beth was mad. When I got home I told her had to go back to my parents in a week. "No," she said, "not until those dam goats are gone!" Well we found a good home for all of the goats and our marriage was saved.

But to be fair, the problem was not with the goats but the farmer, me. I had bought them without putting up sufficient fencing to hold goats. The goats were fun and they did a good job reclaiming the areas we wanted, but at a cost, a lot more money than our sheep. That's money for feed, especially over winter because they cannot survive on hay alone; money for medicine; and most of all money for time. I spent more time in a day with my goats than I did with my sheep, which is the center-piece of our farm operation.

If you are considering buying goats, I highly recommend putting up the appropriate fence, and that is woven wire. Unless you are going to put up eight strands of electrified high tensile, woven is the only thing that will hold them. Even with the woven wire folks we know have described memorable events where their goats got out of pasture and ended up at a neighbors.

From my perspective sheep are much easier to handle and care for than goats. Part of the problem may lie with the Boar goat, which didn’t really do well in the winter climate of Southeastern Ohio. I think other European breeds would do much better. The Boar is better suited for conditions that mimic South Africa, where the breed originates.

As for reclamation, what we found since getting rid of the goats is that our Katahdin sheep do as well as the goats, and are less intensive. I use three low tensile wires and my standard charger and the sheep get the job done. They’ll climb right up a tree or sapling just as easy as a goat; the only difference is that sheep eat at the ground or head level first before they look up. So you may have to keep them in an area a little longer to get then to eat the brushy stuff.