Tips & Info

Shelters & Pens: 

Your goats should be given lots of room to play with climbing toys or rocks available. Make sure that climbing toys are not kept too close to your fence as they can use them to escape over the fence! Your goats should have plenty of shelter from the weather. A three-sided 25 square foot shelter with a low roof could work great in their pen or pasture.

Daily Care:

1. Goats are natural foragers and will “mow” your fields of grass, weeds, and leaves. You will need to supplement their diet with goat feed and coastal hay if they are kept in a pen or if sufficient forage isn’t available. Please be careful not to overfeed pellets to your goat as this could make them ill or generally unhealthy. The best feed in the area that we’ve found is Behrend’s Unmedicated Goat Feed 14 from Behrend’s feed store in Luckenbach, TX or medicated Goat Feed #231 from Lindner’s feed store in Comfort, TX.  If you plan to change feeds, we will give you a small bag to mix with the new feed as you transition your goat to the new feed. The goat feed you choose should have a 2:1 Calcium to Phosphorus ratio to help prevent urinary calculi in goats.  Make sure your wethers get adequate amounts of ammonia chloride in their feed to prevent urinary calculi. Cheap goat feed can cause kidney stones, so please make sure your feed is nutritious.

2. Your goats should have access throughout the day to hay or pasture grazing. We sell a PVC pipe (cut in half lengthwise) as a feed tray.

3. Your goats should have constant access to loose minerals. We give ours Sweetlix Loose Minerals that we purchase from Johnny’s Feed Store in Boerne. They have access to it through our mineral feeder we’ve made from PVC pipe. We’ll sell you one or tell you how to make it yourself.

4. If you do not have adequate fields for grazing, you will need to supplement with hay. We give our goats Coastal hay. Do not fee Alfalfa hay, it is like candy and messes with the nutritional balance of a good goat feed.  Be prepared, as they will waste a lot of the hay. They get picky once it has fallen to the ground! We also make a hay feeder out of PVC pipe. That PVC is handy and cheap!

5. Clean water should always be available.

Temperament:

1. Pygmies and Nigerian Dwarves are quite docile and can make lovely pets, but you must remember that they are goats, not people or dogs! They are capable of learning new things (like walking on a lead), and can become attached to their owners.

2. Never push on your goat’s horns to play the head-butting game with them. This will teach them that they can at any time butt you in the legs, a very painful experience.

3. If you are trying to get your goats to warm up to you, feed them out of your hands for a few weeks (or forever)! They will love to sleep in your arms (if they are small enough). Also, try sitting near them and waiting for them to come to you. They love to be scratched on the neck and chin!

4. Goats are social animals and should have a buddy, preferably another goat, but a horse or donkey could make a good companion under the right circumstances.

5. Goats will establish a pecking order that will change when they move to their new home. In our experience, the goats at the top of the pecking order will be the friendliest and most confident. But all goats are different and smart, and have very unique personalities.

Health:

1. All goats we sell are in healthy condition and are up to date on the C.D.T. shot, which you or your vet will give annually from now on. The C.D.T. vaccine is available at Tractor Supply Co. CDT is a caprine vaccine that provides three-way immunity against clostridium types C and D, which cause enterotoxemia and tetanus. These diseases have never been present on our farm.

2. Goats, especially wethers, are prone to urinary calculi (kidney stones), and it is the leading cause of death in male goats.  It is very important that you follow the Calcium to Phosphorus feeding guidelines stated above.  To prevent U.C., also make sure that your feed includes ammonia chloride.  More information on U.C. is available here: https://fiascofarm.com/goats/stones.htm

3. You will be responsible for worming your goat as needed or weekly if you choose an herbal worming formula. We use an herbal wormer that we get from Molly’s Herbal. Or you can purchase a wormer from Tractor Supply Co that comes in either pellet form or as a paste. If your goat ever contracts worms, you will need to give them Ivermectin, also available at TSC. New evidence shows goats should not be given chemical wormers monthly, as worms can build up a resistance to it. Only use it if you see signs of worms.

4. Please keep a close watch on your goats for the first few months you have them. It is stressful for them to leave their mother or their herd family, and this stress makes them more susceptible to sickness or a parasite called coccidia. If you notice they have diarrhea, aren’t eating, or are acting unusual, please call your vet.

5. Your goats will be most happy if you regularly trim their hooves. Hoof trimmers can be purchased at Tractor Supply Company (TSC). We’ll show you how to trim their hooves out at the farm or you can easily find a YouTube video.

6. We castrate our young bucks at around 6 weeks old using the Burdizzo method.

7. Babies will be ready to go home to you when they are 12 weeks old. This is when they start developing their rumen and no longer need to nurse. We do not bottle-feed unless medically necessary, as mother’s milk makes for the healthiest goat.

8. We do not disbud (dehorn) our goats because they use their horns for protection and as a cooling mechanism.  If raised properly, you should have no problems with them head-butting you.

9. Fias Co Farm at www.fiascofarm.com is an excellent resource for everything having to do with goats—milking, kidding, worming, immunizing, goat behavior, diseases and health issues, feeding, hoof trimming, and mineral needs. We refer to their website often when we have questions, and we also purchase our herbal wormer from them.  The only subject we differ from Fias Co Farms on is disbudding.