You think that’s bad, it’s $22 a pack where I live in Canada. Almost all of that’s taxes, cause the govt is just looking out for everyone’s health. 
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Thanks, everyone, for the great comments! Some were to make me smile, and others were very knowledgeable! I’m carefully pondering my goat project!
Question for the expert would be what can’t they eat? Can they eat undesirables like honeysuckle , multiflora rose, wild cherry, elms, mulberry etc? Wild cherry will kill cows! Can you just tie them on a 50 foot rope and come back at the end of the day and collect your goat and admire the missing poison ivy, oak or trumpet vine? Is it that easy? Wheni was a kid people raised goats but always on hay or grass for some reason.
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@clarkinks WILTED black cherry (or any other cherry, for that matter) will kill cattle, but they - and goats - can eat fresh, green (or yellow) leaves with impunity. The concern is when a tree blows over or big limb splits out, and the leaves wilt before the critters find them.
Goats can and will eat all the undesirables you mentioned, though I’m not certain that they’ll readily eat trumpet vine, but I’m not saying they won’t.
Plenty of goats have been grazed tethered to a ground anchor, concrete block, tree, etc., but in thick vegetation, they may get their rope hung up enough to require frequent check-ins to get them untangled.
When I was a kid, a few folks had goats, but they were usually just running on rough, brushy ground. When the Boer goat thing exploded here, in the late 1990s, it didn’t take folks long to find out that essential truth of life… “Goats were never intended to live and GRAZE in the hot, humid Southeastern USA.” They are not small cows… as long as they’re browsing brush & forbs, things will go well, but once all that is gone, and they’re reduced to grazing grass, parasitism and death losses will not be far behind.
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We normally keep a cow to an acre or two of grass. What ratio do people use for goats? No worries of running out i have plenty of scrub to keep them busy! I figured i’d eat some of them as well. Like cows some babies will be males. If i got 10 to start with i bet that would be plenty for awhile. Put them on a patch clear it out and move on. I could rotate them around fairly regular throughout the year. What is the best thing to feed them for winter? An older gentleman i knew raised a bunch on american elms he said were so delicious he cried when he ate them. That is what i call delicious! They were wethers that tasted that good he said. They castrated them very young.
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There was an interesting article on rams last month in the New Yorker
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@clarkinks I don’t know what ‘stocking rate’ recommendations are for goats.
I do like goat meat (chevon), but cannot get past the smell of lamb/mutton… there’s just something about the fatty acid profile (or something) of lamb/mutton that borders on nauseating to me. My wife loves lamb… but none for me, thank you.
Dr. Susan Schoenian, at U. of MD has maintained a Small Ruminant website for many years, with lots of really good information… may be the best one-stop source out there: https://www.sheepandgoat.com/
American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control website is also a good source of information: https://www.wormx.info/
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There’s a good reason mutton is often served with mint! I can eat lamb if it’s hot and on the lean side, but I draw the line at mutton. Fire roasted goat can be a treat.
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Yes !
And very gratifying after “trying “ to keep one in a fence on a farm with fruit trees !
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from what ive read and seen in vids. these guys that rent out their goats put out portable wire fencing powered by solar to keep them in a area. once they’ve done their job, the farmer collects them in the trailer and moves them, and the fencing, to another location. sets up the fencing and turns them out there. seen folks do that with poultry as well.
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I prefer mutton to lamb myself. Lamb with mint, mutton with frybread and fire roasted chilis
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Goat farmer here. some of our babies:
I tried to con my wife into believing this was a goat I wanted to buy:
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More goats delivering tonight.
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I love goat meat too. I like lamb, but I find the fat disgusting.
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Depending on your pasture, 3-5 goats per acre (not where its arid). If you stockpile pastures for winter, that could be some of your feed. (Endophyte free fescue is particularly recommended.) There are also winter crops (brassicas and others) that will get you some feed fairly late in the year, see the big ag seed companies. I had a lot of angora goats decades ago, not quite so bad with fencing, not as difficult to handle as dairy or meat breeds. In fact they acted more like sheep except for the browsing. There are also the hair sheep which apparently browse more than wool (and most meat) breeds, and that saves you having to find a shearer. You will almost certainly need a good bit of hay tho, and they will waste a lot of it. It is not recommended just to feed pellets, tho I’ve read of at least one person who does and I think combined with winter browse for more fiber would be interesting. The best setup if you can afford or DIY it, is a secure perimeter fence to keep out predators, and then movable electric to move them around different paddocks. I would try Kiko goats if you are not a wool/mohair spinner, but I haven’t figured out yet how much of the claim that they resist parasites is actually true. There’s a really good free on-line goat course (two versions, one for dairy and one for meat), if you can’t find it PM me and I’ll track it down. One thing to consider is it won’t be easy to sell the meat if you grow more than you eat unless you have wholesalers nearby or a large immigrant population you can appeal to. Ten would be a good start, but consider maximizing keeping a buck (and most would have a second as backup). One Billy can handle at least twice that many does, and you need to feed him all year too. The person above commenting on parasites, it depends on where you live. Our pasture was not often that wet and we never had a huge problem (but we did use wormers). Rotating frequently and not returning to the same paddock for a month or more helps too.
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Oh, and I would never tether a goat if I wasn’t in the yard with them. They can strangle themselves.
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