Caring for pet goats
It’s important to know how to care for your pet goats, to keep them happy and healthy.
Goats are lively animals who like to explore and escape, so they need a secure environment and enrichment to keep them active. They’re also social animals who need other goats to keep them company. Your goats will need a regular feeding routine and you’ll need to keep an eye out for poisonous plants. You’ll also need to understand their health needs and to think about their welfare when transporting them. There is a lot of legislation and paperwork to understand.
Below, we offer guidance on their day-to-day care, including handling, footcare, milking, grooming and shearing.
Handling your goats
Handle your goats quietly, gently and confidently. If you handle them from a young age, they’ll become used to human contact and shouldn’t find it stressful.
- You can handle or restrain your goats with one hand or arm below their neck and the other on or around their rear.
- If your goats are small and/or used to being handled, you can lift them. Put your arms around their body, just above the tops of their legs. Support their chest and stomach. Be careful to bend your knees to protect your back.
- Be careful with pregnant goats, and don’t try to lift them.
- Don’t lift or drag goats by their coat, head, legs, ears, tail or horns.
- Goats don’t like being ‘upended’ onto their rumps (as often happens with sheep). You can carry out routine care, like foot care, while they’re standing.
- A strong pen keeps the goat contained and makes inspection and handling easier.
You can train goats to follow you from an early age. This will help you call the goats into their house or a holding pen and can be very useful if they escape. When a goat is loose in the yard or pasture area, put a few treats or a little concentrate into a bucket and shake it while calling out the same phrase each time. When the goats approach, let them eat from the bucket as a reward. They’ll soon learn to associate the sounds with a reward. Repeat at regular intervals over the goat’s life to make sure they’re always keen to approach you and your bucket.
Footcare
In the wild, your goat’s hooves will be worn down by climbing on rough or rocky ground. As your pet, they’ll need regular foot care or their hooves will grow out of shape and be painful.
Check their hooves regularly. The overgrowth of horn on the hooves can be cut away with special foot shears. You’ll need training from an expert to do this as you could be injured or injure your goats. Vets can help, while local goat societies often run training sessions.
Footcare
In the wild, your goat’s hooves will be worn down by climbing on rough or rocky ground. As your pet, they’ll need regular foot care or their hooves will grow out of shape and be painful.
Check their hooves regularly. The overgrowth of horn on the hooves can be cut away with special foot shears. You’ll need training from an expert to do this as you could be injured or injure your goats. Vets can help, while local goat societies often run training sessions.
Milking
If you regularly milk your goats, you’ll need to milk them twice a day while they're lactating. Surprisingly, even some male goats of dairy breeds need to be milked occasionally.
Ask an experienced goat owner or your local goat society to show you good, healthy techniques. You’ll also need to think about milking hygiene to make sure your goat doesn’t get infected.
Shearing and grooming
Angora goats will need shearing every six months as their fleece grows quickly. You can pay a professional shearer to do this or do it yourself once you’ve been trained.
Other goats, especially fibre breeds (angora, cashmere or pygora), need grooming occasionally to stop their coats becoming matted or dirty.
