blueriver said:
Dehorning will solve the problem of getting caught in the fence, going under can be solved with the electric wire. If it fails I do know that a good bbq will work!
I had two Nubian's for about 10 years when the kids were living at home. They were the most persistent animal I've seen. When I first built my barn I had intentions of getting Pygmy's, well my sister worked at a Farmer's market where they had a few goats for attracting customers with kids. Well every winter they would ship them out to various farms around the area. Well my timing was wrong that year as they could not find a home for one of these goats and if he didn't find a home he was on the way to goat heaven, well you no the rest, but it gets worse, when the original owner found out that we were taking this goat, they pawned his twin brother off on the wife and kids too. So here we are with two Nubians. Well I build a pen in the barn and a run outside. Well I had no idea how smart goats were until he outsmarted me four times on the pen door. The first time I had a simple 'I' hook, he learned how to flip that and get out at the hay. Well, I figure I'll build a sliding lock, that didn't work, next I put a locking latch over this sliding latch, that didn't work, next I put a board over the sliding latch to try and cover most of the latch, wrong, I finally had to add a two foot extension on the pen door so he couldn't reach over. Finally I outsmarted a goat, anybody watch the show 'Are you smarter than a fifth grader' or something like that, well that's how I felt. One goat would eat his food and some hay, the other would eat his food and the rest of the hay or anything that was edible. I threw a whole bale of hay in one day just see how much the stupid thing would eat, well I think he ate the whole bale, he ate enough that he was too fat to get back through the door. The door was about a fourteen inch opening I had to get the wife to lure him to the door and I got behind him and shoved him through the door. We have coyotes in the area and I was instructed to put the goats in at night. As far as the horns go, the original owners lanced them off when they were young, but they've always had these little nubs. Well, I had a fence with holes that progressively got larger the higher up the fence you go. They could get the head out through up high and not get stuck, but you know where all the good grass is, on the outside of the fence. I don't know how many days I would come home from work and 'guts' would have his head stuck in the fence with his little nubs hooked like barbs on a fish hook. I would untangle him and by the time I got in the barn he would be stuck again. I left him out all one night after about a week of this to see if he would learn his lesson, I untangled him the next morning and before I knew his was stuck in another hole. I strung the fence holes over with twine so he couldn't get his head in the smaller holes. One thing he never did was try to jump the five foot fence. He would get down on his knees and try lifting the fence to get underneath, but all that got him was stuck once in a while, so I made a bunch of hooks out of rebar from work and drove them in to keep the fence down to the ground. They love to play, head butting and chasing each other, then one got sick and died one night. I went out the next morning to feed them and there was one of them laying there, feet straight in the air, stiff as a board. Well, I figured I'll feed 'guts' first then take the other one out and bury him, well I went to the food box to fill his dish and he came runnin' across the pen and went a%$ over tea kettle trying to get over the deceased and went head first into the wall, I nearly p*&*$d myself laughing. Obviously he had no feelings for the deceased. He lasted about another two years before he got sick and died. He was ten or eleven years old when he died. When they were younger and the kids paid attention to them, I would take them down to the river and throw them in the river, they are actually very good swimmers. At least it got rid of some of the smell for a short while. The kids would try and take them walking a few times, well that didn't last, as every patch of grass, wife's shrubs or anything that was different from the normal hay and dairy mash feed had to be tested and a young girl trying to pull a stubborn goat just didn't work. Anyhow that's my experience with goats, they were very entertaining at times. Hope it's entertained you for a while, as it's brought but a few good chuckles for me.
Steve
Nova Scotia
