# Pros and cons of having goats where you live



## Tyler (Apr 26, 2009)

What state and/or country do you live in? What are the pros and cons of having goats in that area?

I'm in Illinois. For me the biggest con of having goats in Illinois is the winter. It last a good while, so I have to worry about keeping water thawed, quality hay stored, and the barn in good shape.

A great pro, however, is that it's very humid in Illinois so vegetation grows thick. My horse and goats thrive off of the pasture during the summer months.


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## AlaskaBoers (May 7, 2008)

Alaska.

Winter here is 7-8 months long, and very dark, very cold. so kids must be kept warm, water taken out constantly, and you'll have to be willing to do chores outside...LOL!
the Summers are good, we have a 100 day growing season, but where I'm at in the valley is full of glacier silt (and volcano ash) so it's extra fertile. We have 1,500 lb pumpkins grown, world record setting cabbage etc. so the 2 cuttings of hay are good. 
another thing is that were well...kind of isolated, we have to barge up any alfalfa, grains (beside barley) and that's expensive if you want good hay. IT also makes bringing in new animals a pain because you can't bring goats over the Canadian border. :doh:


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

I am in Northern California....
.
Cons.. is sometimes... we get frost and the water freezes...so we have to break the ice in the trough.....
Cons..when the weather goes really cold to hot ...sometimes we get an occasional sick goat...with pneumonia...  

Pros... we don't stay wet for to long... so it is easier on the feet....


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

I'm in Central Kentucky.

I've only had goats a few months. BUT, I can say the cons would probably be winter. Keeping water thawed, making sure everyone stays dry and warm, keeping hay dry, and since we don't have a lot of room for storing hay, we may need to buy some through the winter. We live in HORSE counry, so thankfully there are places to buy hay, but it comes at a price... 
And right now with the wet past couple of months and hot humid weather we've had our issues with hoof rot, BUT they seem to be doing much better now...whew... 

Pros - we love having goats, they are such a joy. We have no other pets - just the goats. Our kids love them, and can spend hours out visiting with them - so they are great for keeping my kids happy too! Especially on summer break and there aren't any kids around here for them to play with. So between visiting with them and helping care for the goats, it is teaching them responsability as well. 
They are easy to keep as far as feeding goes. Things start to spring to life here around mid to late March, and grow until the first frost - typically towards the end of Oct and the grass dies out soon after that.
So we have several months of decent weather that gives the vegatation growth. Between all that, and two rolls of hay they don't need much grain. In fact, we only grain our preggo does, and 2 younger goats daily, and the empty does get grain 2-3x a week. So 2 bags of feed go a long way --- PLUS --- the feed that all the goat breeders around here buy is from a feed store in a neighboring county - medicated goat feed that they absolutely LOVE and it's less than $7 per 50 lbs.


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## myfainters (Oct 30, 2009)

I live in Southern California

Pros: We are warm and dry most of the year so parasite issues and hoof rot/fungas issues are rarely if ever an issue.

We live in the Alfalfa growing region.... you don't find a greener alfalfa or a nicer 3 way hay then here.... its really beautiful. 

Cons: We live in one of the windiest cities ever.... soooo our goats have almost constant runny eyes and noses from allergies, all of our "temporary" shelters are ruined within a week... sometimes overnight because they are ripped to shreds... we can't have anything with metal roofing.... it becomes a frightening flying weapon ready to decapitate you or your animals. <SIGH> So all of our shelters have to have wood roofing..... that gets pretty darned pricey with plywood averaging $24 a sheet and is very time consuming to build and upkeep.

We get little to NO rain and with the high winds any moisture in ground is dried out imediately so we are always ugly, dry brown weeds, and DIRT. Eeew.

The cost of everything is sky high because our state taxes are insane and the cost of living is ridiculous............ not to mention I'm surrounded by citidiots who think they should move into the country and let their dumb dogs run free and laugh it up when they come home with your cats or chickens in their jaws.... ARGH!!!!!

I can't wait to move..... I HATE California. 

Anyone up north want a new neighbor???? LOL


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## Perfect7 (Apr 19, 2010)

I live in North Florida. The pro to this area is the warm weather/mild winters with vegetation growing nearly all year long. We can also have kids with little problem in the "winter", which is usually 45+ degrees on the coldest days with occasional just barely below 30 nights. The water never freezes and it doesn't snow. While the grass turns yellow, I swear the weeds grow year long.
The con to this area is the summer heat and humidity! If they don't eat like crazy I will still have to cut the pasture because it's been growing wildly with all the rain. The warm/humid client is also heaven for the worms, so I think that is a rough battle...especially with the barber pole and with wormer resistance due to constant worming, and all of these darn flies! The boer goats do well with the heat, but the humidity gets to them. I put a fan in their shelter and think I contributed to pneumonia in our prego that way, trying to keep her cool. I don't think hornless goats would do as well in this area, and it's a battle keeping the drinking water even luke warm. I'm going to freeze some milk jugs and try that idea!
Summer kiddings are also miserable for the prego, so definitely not something we will be repeating. We're better off with Feb, Mar, Apr and maybe even January with heat lamps.
Today I was thankful for the massive thunderstorm that rolled in and knocked the temperature from 95 down to 85. If it gets too hot we may catch on fire soon with the oil in the gulf raining down on us in buckets.


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## SterlingAcres (Oct 19, 2009)

We live in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

Con- We live relatively close to water on all sides of us, which leaves us in a precipitation belt. Anything the weatherman calls for, you can expect triple. I'm not a fan of digging through (average) 36+ inches of snow to get to the barn that's a good 150 yards from the house. Water freezes almost instantaneously in the winter. It's rough. 

Pro- Terrain. There's plenty of lush vegetation, rocky outcrops, good soil, and mild weather under the forest canopy. The goats thrive here. It's really like it's made for them. Minus the rain or snow jags. lol


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## CrossCreekTX (Aug 10, 2009)

Central Texas. Cons, it is so hot most of the year that milking the goats, chasing the goats, mending fences that the goats are going thru, etc is sheer misery.

My property is in the bottoms. So I have lots of feed year round and don't have to supplement. OTOH if it is real rainy it is hard for the poor goats to find someplace dry. Sometimes they stand in running water to graze.


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## speedy94c (Jun 1, 2010)

I live in arkansas, 
Pros are the winters are not too cold for long periods at a time. There are lots
of hay and with the declining cattle and horse people its not too expensive.

Cons are the heat and hight humidity is hard on all the animals.


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## FunnyRiverFarm (Sep 13, 2008)

I live in south-central Michigan.

The pros: feed and hay are generally inexpensive, our winter freeze kills off a lot of creepy crawlies, there is very dense and high quality vegetation from mid-April to October, water is plentiful.

The cons: Freezing H20 in the wintertime, No browse or grazing to speak of November-March, lots of mosquitos, black flies, and deer flies in the summer can be miserable


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## Itchysmom (Apr 3, 2010)

I live in North Central Washington, about 4 miles from the Canadian boarder as the crow flies. 

I am new to goats this year so it will be a trial and error period. We have cold winters with snow and this year alot of spring rain. Gras is plentiful from about May to Oct, Then hay will have to be fed. Tho one never know around here what type of winter we will get! 

I have one neighbor who lets his goats roam thier 40 acres all year long, with a forest for cover. Another has a barn that the goats can run into when the weather is not to thier likeing. I don't know what I will have yet as we are building on our new property. But, the goats can run with the horses and eat grass, brush and pine trees during the summer. Like I said, an period of trial and error for me!


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## mrs. lam (Apr 20, 2010)

Alabama

Con: Coyotes, stray dogs, it's HOT. It rains a lot. Bugs. Hunters that want to cut across property....Hay is sometimes hard to find due to drought or too wet. :sigh: 

Pro: Goats love kudzo, sticker brush, poison ivy and me.  

Gina


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## cmjust0 (Oct 8, 2009)

I'm also in Central Kentucky. 

All I can think of are cons at the moment, so here goes... :laugh:

Freezing winters; unless you run tank de-icers, you're chopping water.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Hot, humid spring and summer; perfect environment for h. contortus, aka barberpole worms...*huge* problem here.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Disease; CL is practically endemic here, and with all the meat goats around (no offense, meat goat people  ) there's also a huge number of CAE+ and probably Johne's+ goats...which sucks.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Lots of ill-informed people raising goats; leads to more disease spread and a plethora of rough, unhealthy goats...but perhaps more aggravating is that it leads to dewormer resistant parasites! For instance, lots of people here use cydectin on a schedule until it doesn't work anymore, then sell out when they can't cope with parasite problems anymore...which just infuses cydectin-resistant barberpoles into the larger goat population.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Related to the above...closed herds and tight biosecurity is an absolute *MUST*.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]

Alright..I guess there are a few pros.. 


You can find at least _some_ goat-related stuff on shelves here.. Before it became so hard to find *everywhere*, our local Southern States co-op actually started carrying Bio-Mycin just for goat people, and they also carry C/D-T.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
We usually get three cuttings of good hay, and hay isn't hard to find.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
There's a well-known feed mill local that sells a nice 16% medicated goat pellet for $7.50/bag.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Speaking of feed stores...feed/tack/supply stores abound. If one store doesn't have something, there are a bunch more to call within a few minutes' drive.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
There's a really small custom loose mineral manufacturer in the area; you devise a loose mineral formula, they'll blend it. HUGELY helpful.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
Those cold winters that are such a PITA also provide a killing freeze for bugs..[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
To one degree or another, folks in high places with regard to agriculture in this state want folks to succeed raising goats.. Two local universities have "goat experts" on staff.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]
I hesitate to say this since it's basically also in the first list, but...there are a lot of goat people in this state. In the spirit of taking the good with the bad, among all those really ill-informed/dangerous goat owners are a few really knowledgable ones. If you weed through the crackpots and seek out the folks who put time into their own educations about goats, you find some real gems.[/*:m:2vqtxiga]

I'm sure there are more pros and cons, but that'll do.


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## newtopygmies (May 26, 2010)

Alabama

Cons: Heat and humidity...The ground is so hard I can't get a T-post driven in the ground in some places. I have to use a Burke bar to dig a post hole. All this with sweat dripping off my nose and my shirt so wet it sticks to me... 95 degrees plus every day. Dry years hay is almost non-existent. Did I mention it is too hot and humid?

Pros: Goats seem to be acceptible livestock around here. The winters are very mild. I can ride my motorcycle almost year round. The people (most of them) are not quick to call the authorities everytime you do something on your property. The biggest pro has to be the people around me. They have so far been nothing but helpfull.

Just like the people on this forum :clap:


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