a few words about goats and fencing

This post is in response to a reader's questions - my answer just ended up being too long to post in the comments section, so I thought I'd flesh it out even a bit further and make it a regular post.

The fencing we use for our goats is actually not field fencing, but rigid livestock panels (sometimes called cattle panels). We've used field fencing before and greatly prefer these. They're very rigid, so they never bend or sag no matter how often the goats lean/stand on them, and that also makes them very fast and easy to put up. They come in 16-foot lengths, so you just determine how many you need, sink some posts, and wire the panels to the posts. And you're done! The rigid panels are also sturdy enough to hang feeders and such from them. They go up so quickly and easily, in fact, that it's not out of the question to pull them up from time to time and move your pens around. If you don't mind leaving sets of posts in place, that makes it even easier - simply remove the wire holding the panels on and move them to another set of posts and wire them on to those. I must admit that I have no experience keeping goats fenced with rolled field fencing. We use that for our dogs (but if I had to do that over again, I'd use panels there too). The goats like to stand on the fence, rub their flanks along it, push on it, and so forth, and I just think they'd bend it pretty badly out of shape in short order. If you must use field fence, fortifying it with a strand or two of electric would likely prevent them from doing these things.

The goats we keep are purebred Nubians. They are extremely sweet and VERY melodramatic and needy (which some people might find annoying - we don't mind). Nubians are also notorious for being very vocal - they will talk to you, cry to you, yell at you...constantly. They are highly emotional creatures and never miss an opportunity to, uh, emote. We keep them close and they get a fair amount of attention, and as such they have NEVER tested the fence - not once. The only times they've ever gotten out were times when something startled them so much that they jumped, and landed on the other side. When that happens, they want nothing more than for someone to let them back in! As with anything, though, your results may vary. I've seen other breeds of goats that are were also very sweet, but I have only ever owned Nubians, so I really can't make any reasonable comparison between breeds. I will say that we find them delightful, very loving, largely well-behaved and a joy to keep.

On the subject of horns, I strongly recommend hornless goats no matter what sort of fencing you go with. We have a doe who was improperly disbudded and now has one full horn and one short horn-nub. She's very gentle, and has never intentionally hurt us, but we'll accidentally catch the business end of that horn from time to time, and believe me, it's not something to take lightly. Once she turned her head quickly while I was sitting next to her and I caught that horn right between the eyes - it cleaned my clock, folks.



Patience, the uni-horn. She's not fat, she's really preggers.

Some people feel that letting them keep their horns gives them an extra edge against predators, but having spent time with these animals, I don't believe that it would ever amount to a real advantage. If faced with even the possibility of a threat, my goats will flee. They will run willy nilly around the yard trying to get away from whatever the Scary Thing is. If they were ever faced with a predator that wanted to have them for dinner, those horns would be very little deterrent, if any. On the contrary, they tend to get hung up in fences, tree branches and the like, and can prevent them from escaping a predator if they're stuck. What we've learned from having a horned goat is that horns aren't necessarily as scary as some people like to paint them, but it's in everybody's best interest to remove them just the same. I can't think of any good reason not to disbud.