5/22/22 - Goat Fence

We knew having goats would be a learning venture. We are not entirely ‘city folk’, but we have never had goats before. So we started at the beginning with goats, young ones that are still being bottle-fed. We have gradually changed their diet to things other than milk, but not without challenge. Older goats can eat just about anything and they are fine. But young goats, if you change their diet to quick, or they eat something entirely new (which is just about everything) they get diarhea. Something I thought I would never know, how to treat a young goat with diarhea. Pepto Bismol. Not kidding. (PUN INTENDED!)

But the other challenge has been figuring out how to keep them where we want them. Not to be all super-controlling, but they have fallen down the bank in front of the house and got stuck, they have run out into the road, and they are mauling plants that they shouldn’t. We understand they like the garden and our flowers, we would rather they didn’t eat those, but the rhododendrons are poison for goats. And we need to be able to give them boundaries in clearing the hillside once they are old enough.

I bought an electric fence. Again, I have not always lived in the city, but I have never owned an electric fence. Come to find out, an electric fence is not always electric, it pulses electricity every couple seconds. The wire can be touched without getting a shock right away. So our inquisitive little kids would stick their face through the fence of braided rope and wire, and munch on the other side before getting a shock. Then, once shocked would lunge into the fence rather than away from it, either getting clear through or getting tangled in it which meant repeated shocks till they were freed. It was traumatic, for them and us. It seems understanding an electric fence, and what it does and means, is a learning curve that requires training, for them and us.

It took some time, and several attempts, but it looks like we have got it worked out.