# Writing scifi: pack-goats in 20 years?



## DataPacRat (Dec 27, 2016)

I'm working on a novel set 20 years from now, around "The Geysers" in California, north of San Francisco. Various shenanigans are going to be going on around a couple of mountainous ridges, and it just occurred to me that hikers with pack-goats might be useful for the hijinks. Maybe even enough so for one character to have spent a couple of years starting up a pack-goat hiking business in Sonoma County.


I've found a lot of info on raising goats for milk, meat, or fibre; not so much on pack-goats, outside of the existence of the idea, until I found this forum just now. Does anyone here have any advice, references I can skim, or suggestions on what you'd like to see mentioned in a story that includes pack-goats? Or thoughts on how goatherding might change in the next two decades?


(Also, while I'm here, when a goat eats something indigestible and small, around how long does it take for the object to pass?)


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## fivemoremiles (Jan 19, 2010)

goats are ruminates 
Ruminates have several stomachs and an object most likely will not pass through the goat. 
cattle are also ruminates and to prevent wire and nails from puncturing the stomach some farmers force the cow to swallow a magnet. the magnet remains in the first stomach for the remainder of its life.
Goat pack central is a forum that has tons of information on goat packing. the equipment we use is simple light weight and practical. I do not think it will change much in the next 20 years


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## Goatzrule (Feb 7, 2013)

As long as the goat is portrayed realistic and that they dont actually eat everything.In the next twenty years I think it is either going to continue to grow and expand or if peta has their way all animals will be released into the wild where they will slowly die and go extinct. I hope the former happens


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