backyard goat questions

[aggieterpkatie]

In our area of the country (mid Atlantic area) it is recommended that you put no more than 3-5 sheep or goats per ACRE. Three per acre is best if you don't manage it well (like don't intensively rotate) and 5 is do-able if you really manage it well. You will still have to feed hay sometimes even if you put 3 per acre, because grass doesn't grow in the winter.

Please do some reading on sheep and goats. There are really good books out there like Storey's Raising Sheep the Modern Way.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

That really IS an awesome site!! Thanks for that!!


I do have a couple more questions tho...

Say I want to fence in half an acre for goats, splitting it in half for 1/4 acre sections for rotating (daily, weekly, monthly??) (and for easier "catching" at milking time! ) Would I be able to keep milk goats and say... sheep in the same enclosure? If so, how many do you think that we would be able to keep? I'm thinking that I would like 2-3 goats (for milk and cheese, maybe soap making as well..) and a lamb... maybe 2 and the sheep would be for meat.

Also, would a barn like structure with knee to hip high "fence" to make some stalls to be able to enclose them in when needed work? (also with a door to close the barn in) I remember when I was REALLY young we had goats (I couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years old) and I remember them being in what I think was an old hog barn. I could be mistaken tho.

Goats do not graze. They are browsers, and as such eat bark and leaves and big weeds. Grass is not a very good food for them, though they will eat it if they are starving.
Sheep eat grass. and they eat lots of it, so 1/2 an acre will not go very far.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Goats *do* graze if they're in a pasture with no browse. They may prefer browse, but they will eat grass, and pasture is a great food for them.

 

[nachoqtpie]

Well... I don't know exactly how we are going to do this yet. I know that we want to raise a couple cows for meat, maybe a sheep for meat, goats for milk and a horse or two for riding. I've thought about just putting all of them in a 5 acre enclosure. How much meat do you think a family of 4 would go thru in a year? A cow? Two cows? We eat meat just about every meal, be it beef, chicken, or fish. (We're not a pork family... )

 

[freemotion]

Four goats eat up my two acre pasture. I'd love to raise a steer, but don't have enough land. I spent an extra, unplanned $250 extra on hay last year when it stopped raining in early June and we had a drought summer. For the same goats on 2 acres. So if you don't want to buy hay much, you'll need much more land.