It’s time for another installment in our series of articles where you ask us questions and we do our best to give you good answers. The theme of today’s series: Goats!
It seems you all have tons of questions about these capricious caprines, and rightly so — they’re interesting, useful, and personable members of any homestead, smallholding, or farm.
We’ve got a stack of these questions, so let’s get to it.
1. Can You Have Just One Goat?
山羊是群居动物，它们生来就是群居的2022欧洲杯葡萄牙vs德国。看他们在羊群中睡觉就知道了。他们蜷缩在一起，把头放在朋友的侧翼上(当你一个人的时候就不能这样做了)。一只山羊独自留在家里会感到失落，经常发出哀嚎，可能会出现神经紧张的行为。即使你想要一只山羊当宠物，当你不和它在一起的时候，它仍然需要一群山羊。如果你没有其他大型牲畜，我的建议是至少养两只山羊。
2. How Many Goats Can You House per Acre?
A standard answer for this, according toFarming Base, is up to 8 goats per acre. That number can be incredibly unhelpful, however, because it says nothing about how you’re managing your goats or the quality of the pasture. A herd of goats left on pasture will quickly eat through their favorite plants, resulting in either an unbalanced pasture that’s only growing plants they don’t want to eat, or an overused pasture that can’t recover from their feeding. If you rotate pastures, picket the goats in different areas every week, or bring them loads of trimmed brush from the forest you’re rehabilitating, you’ll be able to manage goats on a huge range of land sizes and orientation.
I suppose the flipside of the question may be helpful. The minimum amount of outdoor space a single goat needs is 250 square feet, but the more you give them, the better off they’ll be.
3. What Are Your Thoughts on Deworming?
As you may have read in my earlier articles, I come from the natural end of the spectrum in terms of animal care, and my answer is entirely biased against dewormers as a routine treatment. I’m not alone — conventional veterinarians agree that routine application of dewormers, especially when they’re done as a matter of course rather than need, ends up hurting goats and breeding resistant worms in the long run.
A calendar-scheduled overuse of them may purge worms from an animal’s system in the short term, but the adaptability of the little buggers means you’ll need to keep switching dewormers as they gradually become ineffective. Dewormers do not address the core problem. All outdoor animals are exposed to worms but in my experience, only animals that are kept in unnatural environments fall prey to them. An animal that is healthy and isn’t kept on the same ground for months at a time has a much higher chance of naturally repelling worms than a weakened animal kept on stale, worm-infested ground.
If possible, rotating your pastures every 21 days is one of the best preventative measures against worm infestation, as it breaks up their life cycle. Furthermore, consider cross-breeding some of your goats with less developed breeds such as the Tennessee fainting goat or other more feral breeds. They naturally have better defenses against parasites.
4. How Do goats Fit Into a Permaculture Landscape?
这是个很难回答的问题。在我看来，山羊是永续养殖系统中最糟糕的动物之一。2022欧洲杯葡萄牙vs德国作为食草动物，它们的天性是吃灌木和树木，而不是只吃草。作为逃避现实的艺术家，它们基本上是等待发生的糟糕的一天。如果山羊被放走了，它们可能会毁掉你多年的树木作物生长。
I’m not saying it’s impossible to work goats into your permaculture system, but I am saying that you’ll be working uphill. Grazers like cows and sheep can fill the same niche in the system at a decreased risk.
Permaculture author Mark Shepard echoes my sentiments in his book “Restoration Agriculture.” In it, he explains how goats are the animals best suited to scrounging nutrition off dying land before it leans towards desertification. When cows and sheep can no longer live off overused land, goats can basically finish it off. Considering the goal of permaculture is anything but desertification, goats may not be the best choice.
5. How Do You Name Goats?
多么不寻常的问题。命名是一个个人决定，完全取决于你如何看待你的动物。2022欧洲杯葡萄牙vs德国如果它们是你的宠物，那就选一些当它们失控时你不介意大声喊叫的东西。如果它们是家畜或未来的食物，我建议保持基本的。对你(和你的孩子)来说，屠宰一只普通的红色Wether，或者处理一只在开玩笑时死去的白点牝鹿，要比发现自己在哀悼Roland和Buttercup公主的死亡容易得多。
6. Are Goats Good at Escaping? Is Houdini a Good Name?
Goats have a bad reputation for escaping, but it’s because they’re quite intelligent. They watch. They learn. And if they find a weakness in your fencing, they’ll exploit it. Everyone will have to deal with an escapee goat at the initial stage of their goat adventure. The goats are learning their new home, and you’re learning their personalities.
But if escapes are routine, it’s not the goat’s fault, it’s yours. You need to build the best quality fences you can, and with goats, the quality demands are much higher than with other, less hammer-headed beasts. I wrote a wholearticleon goat fencing and it may help you avoid future headaches.
The worst offenders, escape-wise, are likely intact males. They will do anything — and I mean anything — to get at a female that they can see, hear, or smell. And if they’re bored, they like to keep in shape by bashing stuff with their head. If you decide to keep an intact male, take special care to design his housing with the toughest, most redundant, impact-resistant materials you can. Then wait a week while he investigates his new home. He’ll helpfully find any weak spots like it’s his job.
Finally, I find that animals seem to grow to suit the names they are given. Naming a goat Houdini right off the bat may be asking for trouble.
7. How Does the Whole Breeding and Milking Equation Work?
It takes time, that’s for sure. Milk comes from does who have kidded, and they can only give birth when they’ve been impregnated. Simple equation, but a challenge to get all the pieces in place. Here’s the basic storyline, greatly simplified.
First, mature does (at least 2 years old) need to go into heat. For most breeds (though some are year-round exceptions) this occurs during late summer and early fall. When she goes into heat, her body is primed for ovulation and male-attraction. Exposure to a buck, or just the smell of a buck, can trigger a doe into heat.
Second, the doe’s eggs need to be fertilized. There are three basic methods, all with their pros and cons.
First, you could own a buck and let him run with the does during the breeding season and do his thing. This comes with the benefit of knowing he’ll be on impregnation duty 24/7, and he’s very good at it. This method also comes with the disadvantage of dealing with a butt-headed buck for the rest of the 360 days of the year when he’s not at work.
If you want the natural effectiveness of a buck, but don’t want to keep one of your own, you may be able to find a buck service. Sometimes, this method involves a so-called “driveway date” between your does and a buck that is driven to your location. Other times, you may drop your does off at the buck’s place for a little soiree.
你需要知道如何识别一只处于“热态”的母鹿(当她允许一只雄鹿骑在她身上时)，可能需要放下所有东西，以便在12到36小时后她掉下来之前把所有碎片都放好。There’s also a risk of picking up parasites or other diseases from exposing your does to another herd.
第三种选择是人工授精，完全消除雄鹿的存在。这种方法可以让你选择当地没有的特定品种或血统。精液吸管是邮寄订购的，你需要使用它们，因为你的精液进入了长期高温。我从来没有做过这种相当不自然的过程，也不能就如何正确做这件事给出建议。
So, you now have a (hopefully) pregnant doe. You’ll need to wait five months for her to gestate.
Come time, she’ll give birth, and your goat herd will increase overnight. You’ll read varying advice on what to do next, but I’ll offer mine. As ever, from a natural bias.
The first milk to come out of a doe is a nutritive, antibiotic-loaded material called colostrum. The newborn kids need every drop of it to truly thrive, and my advice is to let the does care for their kids completely uninterrupted for the first three weeks.
一旦孩子们站稳脚跟，你就终于可以自己喝点牛奶了。要做到这一点，你需要在晚上把它们和它们的妈妈分开。我觉得并排放置两个隔间最简单，这样孩子们和孩子们就能看到对方，闻到对方的气味，但不能喂奶。你这么做的第一个晚上，听起来就像谷仓里的每个人都死了一样。孩子们会嚎啕大哭，妈妈们会回电。Try not to worry — they’ll get used to it soon enough
Early in the morning (6:30 a.m. is a good time to start), make your way to the barn and get your first milk. If you’ve never milked before, and if your does have never been milked, I recommend doing this with another adult, if possible. The specifics of hand-milking are beyond the scope of this article, so be sure to watch some videos, do some reading, and see it done in person before attempting.
Since you’re sharing milk with baby kids, don’t expect to get buckets and buckets of milk with the first milking. You may get only a half a cup from some does, but don’t worry. As the kids get bigger and have more demands, the does will increase production. Anyway, once you’ve milked as much as you can, turn the kids back with the does for the day so they can get what they need.
在孩子断奶之前，你可以遵循这个模式，只在早上挤奶。确保与你的时间一致。有规律的2022欧洲杯葡萄牙vs德国作息对动物的反应最好。自己抚养孩子的好处是，如果你有一天早上不能喝奶，你可以把孩子留在家里，前一天晚上一起喝，他们会帮你照顾。
Once you’ve decided to wean the kids (or the does do it for you), you can begin milking in the evening as well. It’s a good rule to milk every 12 hours, and don’t skip a milking — does get engorged, can get mastitis, and decrease milk production if they aren’t emptied out completely and regularly.
当然，实际情况要比这复杂得多，但这应该能让你开始学习。
8. What Are Good Milk Breeds?
The Nubian is a well-known milk breed, but it’s certainly not the only one. The list of dairy breeds is surprisingly long, and includes both common breeds and rare, threatened ones. Toggenburg, Saanen, Sable, and Alpine goats are all roughly from the same geographic region and are known for being excellent milk producers. LaMancha goats are odd-looking, but can produce rich milk for up to two years after giving birth. And if you can find a rare breed like the Golden Guernsey, not only benefit from milk, but also get involved in conserving a rare breed.
Here’s a much more comprehensivelist of goatsthat have been specifically refined to produce milk.
9.我怎样才能得到一只友好的山羊?我应该从孩子开始还是从大人开始?
Both have their benefits. If you find a friendly adult goat, then you can benefit from knowing it’s already friendly. If you raise a kid, you can grow with it — and have it grow familiar with you as well. Most goats will become friendly with the person that brings them food and rubs their necks every day, but you have to remember that goats are individuals with their own personalities.
You’ll have to get to know a goat to find out if it’s the temperament you like.
My friendliest doe, for example, was a bottle raised 4-H project that was no longer wanted, which is a decent way to find a personable, human-oriented goat. That said, she was one of my weakest goats — both in health and utility. She wanted to sit in my lap, not stand on the stanchion, which made her a less beneficial animal than the rather standoffish doe who milked beautifully.
You may have read kids that are bottle-fed are known for being more personable than dam-raised kids. It is a total generalization. All the kids on my homestead were dam-raised, and their personalities ranged widely from the doeling that acted like a wild deer to the buckling that stood next to me and asked for neck-rubs like a dog. Weird thing about those particular two? They are twins raised in exactly the same environment, and coming out at opposite ends of the personality spectrum.
Whether you start with an adult or kid, spending time with your goats every day is the best way to get them used to your presence.
10. What’s the Best Staple Food for a Goat, and What Plants Should Be Avoided?
We have an earlier article on feeding goatsthat will delve far more deeply into this question. The basic answer depends on your goat’s housing situation. Goats are browsers like deer, rather than grazers like cows, so they absolutely thrive when they have access to brush, berries, acorns, and woody vegetation. Either rotating pastures through woody underbrush, or picketing goats, can give them free access to the best food. But not all of us can let our caprines range through a forest. We have to do our best to mimic that practice if they’re confined to a barn.
山羊应该在一天中自由地获得干草，尽管你会感到害怕，因为它们浪费了相当一部分干草。你可以通过给你的山羊提供灌木丛和篱笆修剪来抵消一些这种肆意浪费的干草。它们喜欢吃大多数树枝、毒葛、弗吉尼亚藤蔓和黑莓。
Pregnant and lactating does are often given concentrates to support their needs or to increase milk production. Conventional industrial advice says this is the standard. Old-world practices avoided this completely. Do research on what fits best with your livestock philosophy.
如果允许山羊选择，山羊自然会避开对它们有害的植物。但如果被关在笼子里，它们可能会因为无聊或好奇而吃有毒的叶子。Here’s a complete list of plants that are considered toxic to goats, but a shortlist to keep in mind includes nightshades (like tomatoes), elderberry leaves, wilted cherry leaves, and rhododendron leaves.
Far worse than toxic plants, however, are human foods and nonfood items. Goats that chew on carpet or tarps can die from getting their digestive systems clogged. And even though they may demand them if offered, all junk food is as horrible for goats as it is for you. I just met some neighbors who inexplicably give their goats sour gummy worms and other snack foods as treats. Tragically, they can’t figure out why their animals sometimes die out of the blue.
Whew! That was a lot of goat questions, but we’re excited to see you all sharing and thinking about what it takes to bring a herd of these excellent and mischievous creatures into your lives. If any of you have further questions, more information than what I’ve shared here, or a differing opinion, drop it in the comments below and take part in the discussion.
And if you have other topic queries, keep an eye out for our next call for questions!
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