Hard Lessons Learned in Keeping Goats

As most homesteads grow they start with chickens and continue to add animals. Animal number two around here were the ever so cute Nigerian Dwarf Goats. Each new animal brings growing knowledge, and the inevitable struck hard lessons learned in keeping goats! Stick around and see what we learned and how we overcame the hard lessons.

The goat herd around here topped out at 7 goats in January 2021. We had 3 does in milk, 2 cute little babies, and 2 bucks keeping us entertained with their antics. At the beginning of January tragedy struck, and a group of very large stray dogs decimated our herd. We were down to one little orphaned doeling, and the 2 bucks. In the midst of the emerging situation the doeling moved in with the laying flock of chickens so she would not be alone, and the bucks were in their pen still as it was the only thing that kept them contained.

Never let your guard down

An animal rescue had been seen picking up strays in the area, and we thought the problem dogs had been removed as we did not see them roaming the streets any longer. Much to our surprise around midnight at the beginning of February the inside dogs were throwing a fit, and crazy noises were heard coming from the bucks goat pen. Even larger stray dogs had come in and take the place of the dogs from before. These dogs were able to jump over the cattle panel fence that kept the bucks in and wounded them both. The dogs in the pen were able to escape before we could get there. We tried for days with everything in the book to save the two bucks, but our efforts failed.

We were down to one little orphan doeling that lives in the chicken coop at night. The Homestead quickly invested in game cameras to see what exactly we were dealing with. Spotting them at midnight it was only clear they were canines and were in the goat pen wreaking havoc. We were able to quickly discover the culprits, and find some other visitors to the pasture behind the goat pen. We added electric fencing to multiple locations in the goat pen to keep the livestock in and predators out.

How we worked to fix it!

After months of improving our fencing we were on the look out for a few new goats to live with our “chicken” goat and expand the herd again. While searching we found an amazing find with a fully trained Anatolian Shepherd that had already been protecting chickens and goats. We are now the proud owners of 3 new goats and a livestock guardian dog to watch over them. So far after boosting our fencing and adding a livestock guarding dog we have not had any issues with livestock loss. We still run our game camera in the back pasture and check it weekly for any new predator issues. At the moment we are doing well with no new sightings.

Do you know the predators in your area? What do you do to keep your animals safe at night?

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