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General
Care
We
keep our little goats as pets.
They are often treated like family members
rather than the farm animal that they really are. Our animals
ARE spoilt, they are often fed things that "normal goats"
would not get and they are quite often found in the house,
running amuck with our children.
We have more detailed information on raising Bottle
Baby Goats. The following is just some basic
care that our goats are given.
HOUSING...There
are many ways people house their goats. Goats need some sort
of shelter, a dog kennel, a cubby house, a small shed, or
at least some good sized trees that they can camp under when
it rains or in the heat of the day.
Fencing can be hinge-joint, ring lock, or electric.
We use both hinge-joint and electric in different areas. It
is important to have good fencing, not only to keep your little
ones in, but to keep stray dogs out. It is a good idea to
have a small area that your animals can come up to of a night
time and this can also be used as a working yard, when vaccination/worming
time comes around.
Short-term Tethering is useful, but not the way that
I would want to keep an animal for too long. Animals need
to be moved regularly and need to be tied out where they will
not get themselves tangled up.
FEEDING....Goats
are naturally browsing animals, prefering to eat weeds and
plants that are above shoulder height. Unfortunately, we keep
them like grazing animals and expect them to make do with
grass. Our animals are on an irrigated, mixed pasture and
we close off half at a time to let it grow and seed.
Grasses
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Mixed
Pastures |
Oats
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Mulberry
Leaves |
Goats
in a bushy paddock will do really well as they will suppliment
their own diet with leaves, weeds and bark. We supply our
goats with a Mineral Lick (free access) and offer them
sliced pumpkin, carrots, apples and a handful of chaff / grain
mix from time to time.
When
the paddocks are "lean" or when our animals are
"locked up", we feed good quality grassy lucerne
hay and pasture hay. We often let our girls out into the little
orchard we have and they prune all the lover branches on the
trees for us.
Hobby
Farm Mix |
Lucerne
Chaff |
Fruit
& Veg |
Mineral
Lick |
We
offer solid food when our babies have reached one week of
age. It is a good time to introduce grassy lucerne hay or
mixed chaff (½ lucerne ½ oaten) and a good quality
grain mix, (work horse mix or goat muesli or steam flaked
barley or guinea pig mix, etc). We offer about an ice-cream
container full of hay-chaff with about a ½ cupful of
grain sprinkled over the top. This is given freely each day
and the left overs are removed the next morning and replaced
with fresh food. Different food can be given as your baby
grows including small amounts of fruit and vegetables (usually
grated). Small amounts of craisins (found in the cooking isle
next to the sultanas) can be given to wethers they are said
to help prevent urinary stones (often caused by high mineral
intake, bore water etc).
Your little one must have access to solid food, hay, chaff,
grass etc starting at an early age, to develop the rumen (first
stomach). Without solids, this part of the stomach may not
fully develop and your little goat can become prone to digestive
problems and other illnesses and will not develop and grow
properly.
Fruit
and Vegies
This is not a comprehensive list, this is simply some of the
things we feed our goats….
Remember: "EVERYTHING IN MODERATION"
Apples, apple peal, apple core
Banana and peel, Watermelon, Mango and peel,
Strawberries, Tomato, Cucumber, Capsicum
Pumpkin, pumpkin seeds and peel, Celery
Carrot and peel, Beans, Silverbeet, Lettuce
Crushed garlic (a sprinkle over dinner, once or twice a week,
great tonic and said to help keep parasites away)
Parsley (good for the blood)
We DO NOT feed bread or goat / chicken pellets (as
a feed) at this early age, they have been known to cause stomach
upsets and are said to hinder the rumen's development.
DO
NOT feed potato peel
DO NOT feed stone fruit leaves
or seed kernels they are toxic
No
Meat
Do NOT feed your baby beside it's best friend (your DOG) because
your baby may get inquisitive and try to have a "look"
at your dog's supper. Most dogs are quite patient, however
on an "off day" your dog may tell your baby goat
to leave it's dinner alone, unfortunately this will be relayed
with your dogs TEETH!
Do NOT feed meat, meat products, meat meal, DOG FOOD/BUSCUITS,
CAT FOOD/BISCUITS, it's the LAW
Do NOT allow your baby to nibble on your dog's left-over bones
either as this can cause BOTULISM.
Do
NOT let your little ones eat over or pick at dog or cat faeces
as they could pick up "toxoiplasmosis"
Fresh,
clean WATER should be available at all times. I
put a "trough block" (contains copper and used to
prevent algae build up) in my paddock trough. These are great,
they supply the goat with the copper they need and keep the
water troughs clean. It is really important to make sure that
their (Calcium) mineral block does not run out as this will
help to balance the copper.
HEALTH.....Keeping
your goats healthy is easy, provided you do not keep too many
in too small an area and you make sure that they all have
access to adequate feed, water and shelter. Goats have a natural
"pecking order" and quite often the smaller, younger
animals are "bossed" out of the feed trough or made
to stay outside in the wet weather. It is very important to
make sure that there is not too much "bossing" going
on as this will unduly stress the animal being picked on which
can trigger a bout of coccidiosis
or an increased worm
burden.
FEET...Feet need to be trimmed fairly regularly. This
is very easy to do with a strong pair of (light) garden shears.
I like to check feet just after rain, that way they are a
little softer and easier to cut. Animals on soft ground will
need trimming more often than those on harder ground and younger
animals need to be checked more regularly compared to older
ones. The hoof wall will often grow
under the foot, if left too long, but trimming it back is
usually very easy.
Clip
off small slices at a time so that you dont go too deep and
draw blood. (If you do draw blood, dont panic, simply spray
with a little antiseptic spray and finish up for the day).
Be sure that you clip the heal too and try to keep the bottom
of the foot flat and even. Goats that are allowed to run around
on concrete or rocks tend to need less attention on their
feet.
If
the feet are really long, thick and curled under, trim
them a little one day and leave them for a day or two
then trim them a little more. Keep doing this until you
have the feet right again.
see
VACCINATION
& DE-WORMING
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