Please Don't Get a Goat

so you've planted a few seeds you maybe even have a couple chickens and the next logical step is goats right if you have ever had even the slightest inkling of getting a goat please please watch this video first come on goaties come on come on come on let's go up to the Hillside guys come on come on come on now I've had goats for over a decade at this point so obviously through the years I have actually discovered some of their redeeming qualities and we'll get to that for sure but baby goats are so cute

in and of themselves that I think a lot of people are way too tempted without actually thinking about all the negatives so let's start with those shall we as you see my goats munching on all this grass let me just dispel the first myth about goats and that's that they are great lawn mowers if you put a goat in a little square fence and expect to have a beautifully mowed lawn you are going to have a very sick goat and a very very ugly lawn because goats historically are not grass eaters they will munch on

a few pieces of grass here and there but they are grazers they are meant to be on Mountain sides jumping on and off of rocks and foraging for leaves and brush and basically Woody fibrous things all the time a steady supply of food for a goat especially if that food is grass or hay will very quickly result in a very fat and unhealthy goat because goats generally like to eat things that that grow above their shoulders that's actually what protects their stomachs from their machine gun poopers in their back parasites grow in poop which lands

on the ground and those parasites matriculate on that ground if a goat is constantly going back to that same ground and getting more food from that place they are going to get parasites and then they're going to die goodies say hello to the cows as we go by hi Cows as it happens goats were actually my gateway drug to cows and if we rewind back to when I got my very first goat 10 years ago back when my hair was still Brown the thought of having a dairy Supply in my small Urban backyard yes we

did live in the middle of the city when I got my first goats was almost too good to be true and as it turned out it actually was too good to be true my first Dairy goat never produced any dairy my second Dairy goat died of a disease I was not yet equipped to be able to diagnose or treat my third Dairy goat was possessed by Satan himself and boy howdy did Dolly Parton give me a good education about what a bad goat could do to your life come on guys so baby goats obviously baby

goats are very very cute the only problem with babies is that they grow up and one really unfortunate thing that happened in 2020 when goats became very very popular and everyone was suddenly stuck at home is that a ton of people got goats and and started breeding them thinking they wanted to be Farmers quickly realized that goats are about a level 10 on the difficulty scale ended up getting rid of their goats and completely flooded the animal Market with goats that had been bred for cuteness not usefulness and while the genetic line that I have

been working on perfecting for the last 10 years has produced some very very cute and useful goats selling my baby goats along with my milk every year used to pay for all the rest of my farm endeavors binded and now I have a really hard time finding a place for my baby goats so I've had to reconsider my milk strategy because to have milk you have to have babies and I as a personal stewardship model I really don't want to breed my goats unless I already know where their babies are going to go because I

don't want to contribute to an already existing problem come on goaties let's go buddy goats are herd animals which means that you need to have at least at least two goats if you're going to have goats but because goats are really good at inventing new ways to die it's probably better to have three because I have yet to know someone who's had goats for more than 3 years that hasn't lost one along the way before moving on I want to take a quick minute to thank the sponsor of this video better help for making the

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to talk to someone about that so should you find yourself in a rough situation check out better help and if you use the code and of all trades at checkout you will get 10% off of your first month of therapy goats actually were a pretty amazing solution for a lot of my problems when we did still live in the city and we had much smaller acreage but then when we moved to a property that had a lot more pasture I really had to think twice about what we were going to do with our goats because

again goats are browsers not grazers which is why we have developed this evening habit of walking up onto the hillside so that they can get more diversity in their diet ah absolutely not leave my tree alone we have to protect our trees from our goats and this is something definitely worth considering for anyone thinking about a goat let's go up here guys this is where the good Stu is goats are insanely smart I've watched my goats figure out how to self-medicate themselves whether they have a stomach ache or they have a high parasite load or

they really need more of some mineral in their diet they know which plants to go to they know that when they've got a tummy ache they've got to find some clay to eat they know that when the Flies are really bad they should stand under the cedar tree because the cedar oil keeps the Flies off their back though goats have a reputation for eating literally anything the reality is that a goat that isn't starving to death is actually super careful about what they eat and in that they will actually slowly sample a few bites of

something give it 24 hours to see how they feel and if they feel sick after eating something they will never touch it again there was actually a really funny moment in our how to prune a fruit tree video where I tossed a Cherry Branch over the fence and my goat started eating the Cherry leaves and the comment section went wild with people saying no Cherry leaves are toxic to goats don't set a bad example don't kill your goats and I was like trust me they'll have exactly as many bites of the Cherry leaves that they

want and then they'll leave the rest which they did and here we are 2 years later and they're totally fine how do they know how to do that guess probably the same way that they all figured out what each one of their individual names are and which order we like to milk and they all know every routine that we do down to the minute goats are insanely smart and if you as a farmer don't learn how to outsmart your goats you're really going to be in trouble because they are chaos monsters come on come on

come on little buddies oh my gosh look at this this is my favorite part of June the livestock Guardian dog she loves her goats so much and she keeps them so clean juny are you the best girl when there's new baby goats born she is such a cute little mom to them that they even try to nurse off of her oh so actually you're seeing it right now one of the reasons why the goats are not actually currently able to constantly be goats on the hillside and that is because we had certain goats that weren't

being trained properly to the electric fence June out John out go go thank you when we first moveed to this property I was so excited to do rotational grazing and learn to practice regenerative agriculture like the actual way that it's supposed to be practiced on this new property a series of events led me to not be able to actually do that on a reliable schedule while also keeping a full-time job and keeping our relationships with our neighbors relation and all that stuff if you've heard that goats are Escape artists that is absolutely true but I

would actually expand on that and say that they are extremely curious extremely smart and tend to be quite itchy you put all those things together and then you take a goat and you put it inside a fence and you get a goat that is spending 23 hours a day trying to find ways to get out of that fence and in that I still have a full-time job I have to be able to go to work and have a mostly un interrupted day most of the time it was taking so long to put my mobile fencing

up on the hillside to create this ideal go situation for my goats that I was like okay I'm just going to do that only when it makes sense and then we're going to find a way to still allow the goats to be goats for me to get enjoyment out of them but also to have an adaptable situation where we can make the goats work for us in a less high-risk situation this little sweetheart right here this is is Jolene look at her eyes goats have elongated pupils which yeah it's a little creepy but it also

serves a purpose goats have those elongated pupils cuz they spend so much of their time looking down as they're searching for snacks and it gives them the ability to see The Horizon which all comes into play when you think about the goatness of a goat these are prey animals I as a giant eagle could very easily snatch this baby up and carry it back to my Nest clearly it's very concerned neighborhood dogs were the biggest threat when we lived in the city and they still are as we're in the country but now we have neighborhood

dogs in the form of a pack of wild coyotes this is exactly why we have Guardian dogs hear that and so when I was thinking about my little baby goats being out in the field or out on the hillside I also had to think about how I was going to keep them safe so not knowing what I know now I got some livestock Guardian dogs that was the start of one of my biggest failures as a farmer we have a whole video you can go and watch about the dogs but it took two years to

train the dogs to be useful as livestock Guardians they are now huge assets to us but even though we do live in the country we also have neighbors and we had issues with them barking too much and with them escaping because they were often chasing off coyotes or the goats would knock the fence down and they would go do a perimeter check but they don't know that our 30 acres is our 30 Acres because how would they they're animals now that I have two well-trained livestock Guardians and have learned how to deal with the barking

and have learned how to keep them fenced on our property and all those things it's really a wonderful asset but had I initially understood the level of stress I was taking on the extra responsibility and everything else I might not have gone the same route but the reality is the number of times those dogs have actually saved my goats lives is shocking so could I actually responsibly get goats without making sure that I had a way to protect them no so as you are looking at pictures of goats and you look at those creepy little

eyes I want you to think twice about how it is that you're going to keep those little creeps safe oh Lucifer what are you doing out here coming to cause some trouble are you Lucy and Brenda Lee have a very funny LoveHate relationship they're always snuggling and snacking together can I help you Brenda figure your life out a little bit come on hey goodies come here goodies hey bu come on come on come on come on come on Renda come on hey Benda hi guys I think with any animal there are really good examples of

everything that is shining and wonderful about the breed and then there are examples of everything that's wrong and awful about the breed I had a goat named Dolly Parton that embodied everything that was both desirable in a Dairy goat but absolutely undesirable in every other area she had statistically a high number of baby girl goats every time she had babies she always red right on schedule never had any complications with any of her births had a whole lot of babies and produced a whole lot of milk her teets were incredible and her orifices which is

the hole that the milk comes out of in the teeths were the perfect size and I could get a gallon of milk with 14% butter fat that tasted better than any cow milk you will ever taste in your life but I think she realized how unique she was and how much I would actually be willing to put up with a because I didn't know better back then but B because she just was so valuable to us and in that she had the worst personality the goat feeding the limbs and feeding my what the heck are

you freaking kidding me Dolly Parton oh my gosh you're such a jerk because Dolly Parton was one of the very first goats that I had I didn't know how awful she truly was I thought I just needed to be more stubborn than my most Stubborn Goat to be able to to push through all the hard stuff but then I got artha Franklin my favorite goat and I realized what goats could and absolutely should be when I got ARA I realized that goats could be super sweet quiet companions that would just stand near you and not

untie your shoes so that you would trip as soon as you walked out of the barn and not like chew holes in your clothes and not let all the other animals out onto the highway on a regular basis artha will let a toddler milk her she will stand in the stanson completely peacefully while my mom who doesn't have very strong hands takes a half an hour to get like a pint of milk out this is the most perfect goat and there's a lesson in that a know what you're getting into spend some time with the

goat before you actually get the goat ask the former owners what kind of personality and demeanor that goat had ARA is my favorite goat and she knows it 10 years later I got Jeffrey and I could tell you a whole lot about what a little jerk Jeffrey was or I could just show you a couple videos no Jeffrey you're not going to be doing that [Music] [Music] Jeffrey all right the moment that the sun pokes behind the hill over there we are about to see yet another shiny example of why goats can be a real

pain in the tushy they are absolute Divas so let's take this moment to walk back to the barn together instead of chasing them in a moment hey buddies goodies come on come on being a goat Shepherd is actually one of my favorite jobs there are a few things more gratifying than knowing EX what they're going to do predicting it telling people about it and having them then actually do it and have people be like wow how' you know they were going to do that I also think that this is probably a good time to mention

that goats are chaos monsters with machine gun buttholes that make little black bean pies all over anything and everything that you love I never really thought it was actually physically possible for one animal to produce so many turds in a day but this is from 30 seconds of standing in front of the barn okay guys come on let's go here we go buddy come on come on come on come come on come on come on come on come on come on buddies this is what I like to think of as our Fort Knox our backup

plan the place where they have their babies the place where we put them if we need to make sure that under every single variable circumstance and goat curiosity itchiness whatever that they are safe and well protected in here you'll see that there's a little patch of grass out here but remember remember what I said about goats not being lawnmowers this is not a food source for goats this is actually a potential disease pit for goats because the goats are out here often and they poop and they pee and if they have any parasites or anything

else they're going to poop down into the grass they're going to then take bites of that grass and then they are going to have more parasites the other goats are going to get whatever parasite the other goat has and on and on and on and suddenly we are in a very vicious cycle of one of the things that is most dangerous to goats I never want my goats to be hungry when they're back here because a hungry goat will eat things that it shouldn't eat I'm not saying that a few Blades of grass here and

there are awful for a goat but I am saying that a goat that is expected to eat only grass will very quickly become mineral and nutrient deficient which then puts them at huge risk to all kinds of other things so when we have them in this barn and heavy use area they're nut nutrition and well-being is our number one concern let's talk a little bit more about that come here this is chaff and this is probably about to sound like a commercial for this product but I cannot tell you enough good things about it chaff

is actually a hay product but it is a fermented hay product and you'll see if you look closely at it that there are lots of stems and stemy material in it and when we lived in Washington even though I had a fantastic hay source of really really high quality hay My Goats would make a game out of pulling each and every piece of that hay out of the hay feeder throwing it on the ground stepping on it pooping on it peeing on it and then telling me through their words and other things that they were

absolutely starving to death could you not I know you really like it and knowing that I have some guaranteed nutrition for my goats even when they are in a barn setting is a huge piece of the puzzle but it's not the whole puzzle if you are going to take a goat out of the hillside in the forest if you're going to take any animal out of its natural habitat it is 100% up to you to supplement everything else that they need when I first started with goats I had a few really really shocking and pretty

awful experiences with some birth defects and as I learned more about that I found out that it was because my goats had a pretty extreme selenium deficiency and that's just because there was literally no selenium in any of the things that they needed and just like us and the vitamins that we take if we're deficient in anything goats need that stuff too and in that if you're going to have goats you need to have goat minerals I've tried them all and ultimately the best ones on the market are made by Redman minerals there's a lot

of reasons but this isn't a video about salt or micronutrients but let me just add to this by saying that the minerals themselves are really important this is a goat mineral product that is specific specifically formulated for goats I also give my goats free choice kelp meal and this provides other things that goats tend to be missing from their diets and the goats are literally just able to come in and grab this stuff whenever they feel like it and weirdly they know what they need and just like when they're out in the wild they'll come

and find it Brenda really loves the Kel meal I think she's like low on iron um one other thing I used to always have in my goat mineral buffet was sodium bicarbonate or baking soda and that's because goats are very farty bloaty little ruminants and in that when they have a tummy ache they need something to be able to help that air dissipate so just like we might take a gasex a goat really needs to have some form of gasex and so like I said I used to use baking soda until I found out that

actually a volcanic ash does the same thing as baking soda but also helps the goats to absorb their other minerals so I actually started mixing volcanic ash into the minerals that they ate and then I also just give them their own little Ash bucket as well so if they ever have a tummy ache they'll come straight to this one but because of some sciency things that we don't have time to talk about here that happen when a goat is eating any mineral along with Ash they are able to absorb it at a much higher rate

which helps us to save money on using less minerals and also their health like literally just the the the sheen of their coats has so drastically changed we've never had any more issues with birth defects praise everything that is Holy and the goats have never been healthier by the way you get this Kel meal from your local Garden Center by in the 50 lb bags otherwise it's a total ripoff and trust me your goats will eventually eat it all you can see this bag has kind of been through the ringer the goat mineral and the

ash come from Redmond minerals you can get this at Tractor Supply this I think you have to get online at their website we'll put links for all this stuff down below so should you actually get a goat the answer there honestly is it depends I actually have waffled a lot of the last 10 years about whether I should actually keep my goats especially now that I'm the proud owner of 18 Cows as well but the thing that keeps me coming back from more aside from just artha being perfect all the time she's such a sweetheart

so loyal so wonderful but really it comes down to the goat milk in side by-side taste test comparisons every single guest I've ever tricked into doing this test has picked goat milk over cow milk if you are absolutely parched Carson which one of these items would you choose this one ha oh that was goat milk M yeah really that even comes down to my husband and my father who always said that never in their life would they ever actually drink a glass of goat milk I may or may not have tricked them into drinking it

for the first time but let's just say that they're repeat customers now but goats are not for everyone if being farted on about 300 times a day or being stuck in a barn where there's 12 goats farting all around you is going to bother you please don't get a goat if having a backyard Dairy source is really exciting to you but you're not going to be able to show up and milk your goat on a consistent basis please don't get a goat if you're not 100% sure that you can actually reliably take care of a

goat provide it the friends that it needs the shelter the nutrition the stimulation the sense of meaning and purpose that a goat needs please don't get an animal that's going to live for 15 to 20 years and ruin it for the rest of us if you're still on the fence about whether it's a good idea maybe try fostering rescue goat for a little while but if getting a backyard Dairy Source that's this big like you can pick this up and put it in your car and take it to birthday parties with you not sure how

many of my friends would actually appreciate that but it is a funny thing to think about if you want that if you want a friend a constant source of entertainment if you love to giggle goats are a great choice but if you're going to Goat please just goat responsibly for [Music]