People sure do love their goats. Listen to members of The Goat Spot forum profess their devotion: On the subject of how goats make life better, “wndgrvr” swears, “If I didn’t have my animals I would be just an old fat lady watching TV.” On selling their kids (i.e. goat babies), “billmac” groans, “We advertise, and then we agonize. I want to have the FBI do a background check on these people so I know they’re going to a good home.” And on leaving the farm to travel, “TexasRanger” pleads, “Does anyone know some good questions to ask someone before I let them NEAR my goats?”
For anxious goat keepers like TexasRanger who need or want time away from the farm, the online goat community is a font of wisdom. Here’s what they say on the subject of…
Finding a competent goat sitter
1. Contact the 4-H Club or Future Farmers of America to find an agriculturally inclined teenager looking for experience and pocket money. Some are already raising their own goats.
2. Ask for referrals at your local farmers’ market. Surely they must have some intel on trustworthy farm sitters; after all, they leave their animals every week to peddle their wares.
3. Hire a professional farm sitting company. Depending on your needs, they can basically move in while you’re gone, or pop by a couple times a day as needed.
4. Barter with neighbors–goat care in exchange for goat care, or some equivalent services. But people frowned on the idea of dropping your goats off for an extended slumber party at your neighbor’s house while you travel; the change of scene and routine can really jangle a goat’s nerves.
Once you’ve tracked down someone reliable, what are the main jobs they’ll do?
Feeding
That’s a no-brainer. It is a well-known fact that goats thrive on a diet of tablecloths and tin cans. OK that’s a myth. But they’re versatile noshers. They can even eat noxious stuff like poison ivy. Some snack on paper. In her book Raising Goats for Dummies, Cheryl K. Smith posits that the tin can fallacy was born when someone saw a goat trying to eat the label off the can.
So what normal stuff do they eat?
Goats are willing to graze, meaning they’ll eat grasses and other low-lying plants, but most are primarily browsers, i.e. munchers of the leaves and branches of bushes, shrubs and small trees. In addition to whatever they nibble during free grazing or browsing time, staples of the farm goat diet include hay, grain, and minerals like copper and salt, in varying amounts and proportions depending on a goat’s stage of life. For example, pregnant and lactating goats, and kids, need more grain to get sufficient protein and calories. For everyone else, go lightly; porking out on all those carbs can make a goat as fat as a cow. Grain comes in many forms, including commercially produced–there’s even such a thing as Purina® Goat Chow®.
There IS a lot to know about feeding goats a balanced, nutritious diet. But a goat sitter doesn’t need to figure this out on her own. A lot of farmers suggest just portioning out each goat’s rations into separate containers before leaving, so the goat sitter just has to know which goat gets which container. One Goat Spot member, “loggyacreslivestock”, does even more hand holding: “We place each animal’s feed in paper bags and have their name on it, their name on their [feed] pan, their name at their spot to eat and a poster with everyone’s picture prominently displayed inside the barn. That way [sitters] only have to dump a bag in a pan and match it to the goat.” So simple a monkey could do it. (Oh my god wait! Should I start a business where I train monkeys to feed goats?)
Milking
Milking is where things could get hairy. If a goat is “in milk”, the goat sitter better know how to finesse an udder. Milking a goat is on my bucket list, meaning I haven’t done it yet but I really want to learn. Having watched an entire film festival’s worth of YouTube videos, I now bring you these instructions. Grab a goat and let’s begin.
1. Milk twice a day, at 12 hour intervals.
2. Most people used some sort of milking stand to keep the goat in optimal milking position. The goat puts her head through an opening to access a feed trough filled with tasty grain. That keeps her busy so she doesn’t get fidgety.
3. Next, wash the udder and teats so whatever crud is on there doesn’t plop into the milk bucket. Plain old water or soapy water seem to do the trick, but if you prefer “convenient, one-step udder preparation in a sturdy yet gentle wipe,” you can use Milk Check Teat Wipes! Talk about a niche product.
4. Now, let the milking begin. First off, do you tug and yank? No you do not. Do it lovingly. Hold a teat at the top by making a loose ring with your thumb and index finger. Then gently squeeze till it empties, release it, let it refill, repeat. Piece o’cake, the videos promise. You can start off one teat at a time and graduate to double fisted once you’re a pro.
5. To get out the last drops, a few videos recommend “bumping” the teats like a baby goat would, or massaging the udder, which is basically going to second base with your goat. Since other videos don’t bother with these shenanigans, I concluded whether you fondle and tickle your goat is your business, not a required step.
Or…a machine can do the job. Options are as varied as snowflakes. The Goat Spot forum members discussed everything from $1800 industrial quality mechanized milkers to a basic manual pump from manufacturer Udderly EZ (get it?). If you’re a maker type, instructions for DIY versions abound. Some farmers thought a milking device might make the process idiot-proof for a less experienced goat sitter. As an aspiring goat sitter and self-diagnosed idiot myself, I think more moving parts means more ways to muck things up.
Dealing with emergencies
If a goat develops a medical problem, it might not even be apparent to someone who doesn’t know goats, or know this particular goat. Animals often hide their weaknesses, making some illness and injury hard to detect. If a goat is sick or hurt, the nearest vet who treats livestock may be far away, and not available for off-hour emergencies. Maybe there’s a large animal vet hospital within reach, maybe not. Also, some said their goats do “naughty” things like escaping their pen, and it could be tricky to round them up again.
While on the lam or even in the presumed safety of their own living quarters, misfortune can strike in many forms. Thorns and splinters can cause festering abscesses. Ingesting a stray nail while feeding can bring on the rare but serious “hardware disease”, which could require surgery. Chowing on certain plants (like vegetation from certain fruit-bearing trees, including cherry and peach) can poison a goat. Overeating can result in a treatable but life-threatening condition called bloat. No wonder goat farmers fret about leaving.
Goats someday…not today
So…a lot to think about for a prospective goat sitter. The more I read, the more I recognize how much preparation and education it takes to become genuinely qualified. I’m not deterred, necessarily…but I’ve become distracted by another tantalizing way to mingle with goats: renting them on Amazon.com. Really. In certain geographic areas you can now hire goats as landscapers. They’ll devour your weeds and pretty up your yard. According to the “Hire a Goat Grazer” page, goats will dine on “thistle, blackberry, English Ivy, kudzu, poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak, wisteria” and other garden invaders.
I was so taken with the idea that I dreamed some nearby homeowners were already harboring small herds on their property, and I jealously coveted my neighbors’ goats. The service isn’t available yet in my county. However, local residents may raise livestock if they have at least two acres of land. I’ve joked for years about forming a co-op with neighbors on my cul-de-sac, pooling our land to meet the minimum acreage. No takers yet….
A final thought: In my previous post I wished in vain for farm sitter’s memoir for a behind-the-scenes gawk at the experience. But where is my brain? I just realized I already read–and LOVED–such a book. It’s Dirty Chick: Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer by Antonia Murphy, who tended a farm in rural New Zealand during the owners’ extended absence and eventually became a hobby farmer herself. HIGHLY recommend. I must re-read.
Do you love goats? Write about goats? Raise goats? Sit goats? Do you have advice for me or your own stories to tell? Share it here!
Animals Underfoot 