The other method, “loafing and confinement,” is to keep goats in a shed or small barn with a fenced yard for exercise. The first is to pasture them and provide a poor-weather and bedding shelter. There are two primary methods for housing and containing goats. With just a little ingenuity and room in your budget, you can have the ideal setup for keeping goats. In fact, a large shed will do just fine for a few goats. Their housing requirements are nearly as casual as those required for chickens. Goats won’t take up much room on your farm. If you wouldn’t leave your 3-year-old nephew alone for 20 minutes in the shelter or hope to hold him with the fence you just built, it probably isn’t adequate for a goat either. Any object within reach will be challenged, broken, eaten, chewed, ripped, pushed or punctured by a goat. If a barrier can be jumped over, an electrical wire reached, glass windows pushed upon, grain accessed or nails stepped on, it will be. Whenever you need to set up an area for goats - inside or out - it is beneficial to remember the adage of a goat, “like a 3-year-old in a goat suit.” In accessible prose accompanied by charming photographs, Childs discusses the basics of raising chickens, goats, sheep, turkeys, pigs and cows, offering valuable insights into the very nature of each animal. The following is an excerpt from The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals by Laura Childs (Skyhorse Publishing, 2010).
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