While cows and chickens are popular animals to raise on farms, goats can be just as profitable. They can produce milk or serve as a source of meat and they don’t need an elaborate shelter to be comfortable. Before you go out and acquire some of your own, though, read these tips for raising goats on a farm so you can care for them properly.
Decide What Purpose They’ll Serve
As we’ve touched upon, goats can fulfill various roles for you, which is what makes them an attractive choice for farms. Still, you shouldn’t start raising them without having a primary goal in mind. Think about whether you mainly want goats for milk, meat, or another purpose. This will give you direction on the specifics of how you’ll look after them. For example, you don’t want to keep breeding male goats near females for too long if you’re trying to get milk from the latter. This is because the male goats’ unpleasant musk will appear in the milk if they are consistently present.
Know What To Feed Them
Goats have a reputation for eating just about anything. It is true that they will eat a wide variety of foods, but you do need to be attentive about what you feed them to keep them healthy. Goats are browsers, and will move around an area to find suitable shrub vegetation growing on the ground. Unlike cattle, they cannot mainly subsist on fresh grass. When your goats aren’t able to browse as much during the colder months, you can give them hay made of legumes and/or grass. Kitchen grains and garden compost can act as supplements to their main shrub diet as well.
Put Up Strong Fencing
To keep your goats secure on your property, you must put up strong fencing, as they have a propensity for trying to escape. As a result, a tip for raising goats on a farm is to learn how to choose the right fence for them. Remember to consider goats’ climbing and ramming behavior and go for materials that they cannot chew through. The fencing should be about four to five feet in height, depending on how lively your goats are so that they cannot climb or jump over it. You should also make sure that there are no holes or loose entry points that they might attempt to squeeze through. When it comes to materials, sturdy wood, wood-and-wire combinations, or plastic lumber can work effectively.
