Sheep or Goats Part 1- The good and bad of Goats

 

If there is one question I get asked all the time it is the Sheep or Goats question. Now I hafta admit my experience with Goats is not in-depth. We had a couple of goats when I was a teenager. Back then we were so rural the goats just basically lived in our barn and wandered around where ever they pleased during the day. Often bedding down on the porch at night or to my horror climbing on top of my old truck. One time they found a notebook left in my truck by a girl at school and they ate it. I hated those goats. 

Eventually I saw an episode of an old series about a town in Alaska. North something I think, it was long ago. Anyway some how the characters made a big trebuchet to throw a cow with but they talked the guy into throwing a piano instead but that gave me an idea. I actually built a trebuchet myself (like about 1/4 size with car springs as the main power not counter balance) and told my Mom I was going to throw the goats with it. The goats did go to another home before I finished the trebuchet. Mission accomplished. 

That trebuchet sat in that barn for 20 years before Mom sold that farm. 

My next experience with goats was several years ago when (according to my family) some older woman drove up in our driveway while I was at work crying about how she was being forced to move and no one would take her goat. This is all hearsay as I do not trust my families' stories where animals are concerned but we (meaning ME) ended up with a goat that really looked exactly like the above picture. She was a very affectionate goat named Stormy. Unfortunately I was not equipped to keep a goat at that time. She did not get along well with the sheep and they picked on her mercilessly. I had to put her in the stock trailer at night and she cried the whole time. I had a co-worker who raised goats exactly like Stormy so she moved there. The co-worker died a very few years later but no one knew what happened to the goats he had or I would have gotten her back. I think I actually made a post about Stormy here years ago.

Not too long after that the wife talked me into making a goat paddock and building a goat house and working the whole thing into my fencing operation so I could keep em divided but still rotate pasture areas. Too bad it was too late to save Stormy but never fear the wife got a Mommy Goat with a baby Kid and a friend. 

This is where my practical goat experience really starts.

Compared to Sheep, Goats are as easy as keeping a house cat. Now maybe I have just been lucky but our goats rarely if ever seem to get sick, no worming issues and rarely if ever injure themselves. The original Kid who was the cutest, funniest and most playful thing I ever saw in my life did get a skin rash one Winter the Vet said was due to mites but one treatment of Diatomaceous Earth in the goat house and a few cream treatments and it never returned.

The other goat who was a friend for the Kid did managed to get her leg down the side of my car hauler and broke her leg. It healed fast and she has been fine ever since.

Our three goats laugh at any temperature. Heat does not seem to bother them at all and they seem to ignore cold until it gets below the teens and even then they are just mildly annoyed at having to stay inside and snuggle with each other. 

Our three goats being a grown Mommy with two kids (one not hers) I do not think was treated very well originally. She was very wary of me when we first got her and it took a long while before she began to trust me. She had no clue what grain or sweet feed was when we got her. But boy does she know what it is now LOL, The kids, well they have been carefree since day one. I hooked my car hauler up to my truck, put the tail gate down and we would play on the trailer. I would put my hand out and let the kids push into it and then would pretend they won the push war. Then they would run around the trailer hop to the bed of the truck, up on the tool box and on the roof to do a little victory dance that they had won. I still wish I had taken video of their victory dances it was adorable.

These days Mommy goat is only happy when I am with them. She climbs in my lap if I let her. After gardening season I let her into the garden area to sit with me and she even demands her own chair to sit in while we watch the sunset.  

Our three goats are not polled and it is rarely an issue. I hear people complain about goats getting their heads stuck a lot but when it happens to ours it is because I put the fence up wrong or did something that made one of the openings smaller than it should be.  I will watch in amazement as one of the goats sticks her head through the fence and then will stop and think about twisting just right to get her horns back out. If my polled sheep stick there heads into a hole and get just a little stuck they will stay there till they die if I don't help them.

I never worry about a goat head-butting me in a dangerous manner. Of course my goats are small but they do have sharp horns. 

My Goats seem to love hay. No matter how much lush foliage is available they demand hay. Maybe they do need it naturally I have never researched it I just always make sure they have access to hay year long. The sheep will flat out ignore hay when the grass is growing.

The bad side of things are they will eat any fruit or vegetable bearing plant first if they can with extreme prejudice.  Girdle any tree in a matter of minutes they can reach unless it is an old one with rough bark they leave those alone mostly. Will eat the siding on a building and thru a door just for fun. They will climb anything... and eat it. They do NOT like to share food, so if ya give em any food it better be in separate areas. They will share hay but only if it is a big round bale so they each have the own private side. 

Oh and they like to nibble on clothing, or leg hair or skin if it is sweaty and salty.

Now Sheep will eat about everything that bears fruit like a goat but sheep are not nearly so focused on it. Sheep tend to go for mass while Goats seem to have particular favorites the devour first.

And lastly a more personal reason I am not fond of goat meat.

Also I have never dealt with a BIlly Goat. I hear they are nasty creatures and may be much harder to care for than what I am experienced with. All and all though my Goats seem very hardy and by size seem to eat about twice as much forage as Sheep. Very important if you want them to clean up a field. They also eat a much wider range of things although as I pointed out sometimes that is not always a plus.

I will focus on Sheep in part II

 

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!