Cheryl K. Smith - Raising Goats For Dummies

Electric wire: Electric wire is an excellent addition to any of the other types of fencing. The wire and insulators are inexpensive; the biggest cost is the charger and ground rod. A strand along the top helps keep predators out and goats and livestock guardian dogs in. A friend of mine uses three strands of electric wire about a foot off the ground with temporary posts in areas where goat escape isn’t a disaster. The advantage is that it can be moved if you want goats to browse different areas. The disadvantage is that some goats can walk right through it with seemingly no effect. (Or they get out and then are too scared to get back in.) You must train your goats to the fence prior to using it this way. You can do this by setting it up inside a fenced area and then watching them while they test it out. Normally they learn after only two shocks. Use a 4,000-volt charger for goat fencing. If your fencing isn’t near a power source, get a solar charger. Place the grounding rod in a location that is as dry as possible. Follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for grounding and charger placement.If you want the best electric fence, ideal for keeping coyotes out, you can invest in high-tensile electric fencing, also known as New Zealand fencing. It combines woven wire and electric in one fence, with alternating wires electric. It is more expensive than standard electric wire.

Avoid using barbed wire or wood fences for goats. Barbed wire fencing is less expensive than woven wire or cattle panels, but goats can get injured by the barbs. Wood fences, such as the white ones used for horses, are very expensive, don’t last as long, and are inadequate for goat kids, who can get out between the boards.

Plan space for enough gates in the places you need them — highly trafficked areas, near structures, and between different pastures. Make sure they are strong enough to withstand goats. This means a good, goat-proof latch. If you use a hook and eye latch, make sure that it has the extra piece that locks so it can’t just be pushed out of the eye. I recommend that you install gates so they open into the enclosure, otherwise a goat can more easily get loose by rubbing or shoving on them.

Make the gates as high as the fence, if possible, with no gaps underneath the gate. If you will need to drive or get a riding lawn mower or tractor into the area, make sure the gate is wide enough.

You can purchase premade gates of differing widths. If you use cattle panel for fencing, you can make gates from smaller pieces. If you make cattle panel gates, overlap them with the fence to give added strength, especially in an area that houses bucks.

Goats don’t appreciate the aesthetics of a well-tended flower garden or a fruit orchard. (They do appreciate the taste of it, though.) They are browsers, which means that they prefer bushes, trees, and woody plants. They also prefer variety in their diet and so try most of the plants that are available.

If you have a favorite lilac or rose bush, apple tree, or even a large fir tree, be ready to have it relieved of leaves, bark, and ultimately its life. If you want to keep any flowers or bushes and trees, make sure they aren’t growing in an area where your goats might go. You can fence them off, or in the case of trees, you can goat-proof them. The upcoming sections give you ideas for protecting your plants and trees.

You need to remove any trees that are poisonous to goats and fence off or goat-proof any others you don’t want destroyed. (See the section “ Removing poisonous plants” to find out which common trees can be poisonous.)

If your property is large enough, you can fence off an area for your goats that doesn’t have trees, or you can decide to sacrifice some trees to the goats. After all, the bark and leaves are good for them. You can even locate the pen where the leaves can still fall or branches hang over the fence so your goats can enjoy the trees without destroying them. If the area you need to fence includes trees that you want to protect, try goat-proofing the trees. The next section tells you how.

Goats will damage and eventually kill trees by browsing on the leaves and shoots, stripping the bark, and rubbing their horns (if they have them) on the trees. The only trees I have that seem to be immune to goat damage are old-growth Douglas firs whose bark is probably not tender enough for them. Your goats cause worse damage when they don’t have access to any other plants to eat, but they enjoy tender bark and leaves even when grass and shrubs are available.

If you want to save trees that are within the goats’ fenced area or just outside the fence, you need to goat-proof them. A better choice, if you can manage it, is to avoid including trees in the goats’ area; goat-proofing individual trees is time-consuming and expensive.

For smaller trees or saplings, you can buy 5-foot-tall tree bark protectors from garden stores or wholesalers. These mesh or corrugated plastic tubes were designed to fit around the tree trunks to protect them from deer.

You can goat-proof a larger tree simply by wrapping it up to the level that your largest goat can reach when standing with its front legs on the tree. You can determine this height by holding a treat up next to the tree and measuring how high the goat can reach. (If your goats aren’t full-grown, you have to estimate.)

One downside to goat-proofing is that it can inhibit growth of the tree, so you need to check the tree to see whether the wrapping is too tight and rewrap it every few years.

Materials you can use to wrap a tree include

Plastic strips designed to cover rain gutters to keep leaves out: I found these at a garage sale. I wrapped them around the tree and hooked them together with wire.

Hardware cloth, also called rabbit wire: It is more rigid than gutter covers and can be attached to the tree or to posts in the ground surrounding the tree. However, it’s expensive and doesn’t fit as neatly as gutter covers. If you attach hardware cloth directly to the tree, it also will inhibit outward growth.

Window screen netting: You can obtain a 1,000-foot roll for less than $100 and use it to wrap quite a few trees, depending on their diameter.

If you have only a few trees at risk of being debarked and want something more permanent, you can goat-proof trees with triangular wooden enclosures like those in Figure 4-1. A wooden enclosure requires three posts as tall as the tallest goat can reach, and wooden slats attached with screws across them. You can attach them close enough together to prevent the goats from getting their heads through the slats, or you can make the enclosure far enough outside the tree that they can’t reach even if they get their heads through.

FIGURE 4-1:A tree goat-proofed with a wooden enclosure.

After you finally get the goats you dreamed of, you don’t want to put them at risk or lose them from an avoidable cause. In this section, I tell you about some of the steps you can take to protect your herd from potential hazards.