IAF - Livestock 🐄

thanks. I ll just put up walls

My herd all come back to the barn in the evening.

Of course, although the lake is lower them my fencing in spite of the 16' I've recently added to both sides. But what does fencing have to do with their deciding to come in at night? And, how does that prolapse harness work if the vulva isn't blocked?

Thanks Leap.

Nice catch. I bet she is very appreciative and you can rest a little easier.

Goats that are kept within fencing behave completely differently from animals that are free to roam the entire world. We've even tried acclimating them to a housing area and they still don't necessarily return to it when there's no fencing. Sometimes they'll hang around an area, sometimes they'll keep wandering. Goats have a certain curiosity that keeps them moving on. Likely this trait helps prevent parasitization. Chickens don't care if they have a fence or not, they'll return to a coop every night very predictably.

Interesting topic because we’ve been considering putting our 3 free range dwarf does back in a pen but I feel so bad about it that I’ve been considering finding them a new home where they’ll have more pasture even if penned. We have all our trees and shrubs under wires and it works but it’s ugly and every time I want to put out a plant or maybe some herbs on my porch I know I can’t. They also poop everywhere which probably drives me even crazier. We put them in at night where they’ll have a barn and about 1500-2000 sq ft behind cattle panel. It seems cruel to keep them in there all the time but maybe I’m applying my human behavior to them. My husband could extend it some so they also have some brush to munch on into the woods but they’ve bee free ranging three years so it will be a change for them. I’m also not sure if we want to breed them again so the only point of keeping them would be because we love them so much. It’s just hard to see them in one place 24/7.

Well, I think if you Google space requirements for Nigerian Dwarfs, you'll find you've given them way more than what's typically recommended. I don't know how large the barn is, but if it gives them 75-150 square feet between the 3 of them, they have all the indoor space people recommend. I would guess the space behind the cattle panel is several times more than recommended as well. In other words, they are pretty spoiled 🥰 If you want them to access more area without bothering things you don't want them around, you could build a 'goat tractor' that could be moved around without them leaving it

The barn has two sides and we only allow them about 4x5 space inside on each side right now because they just pee all over it and it becomes such a mess. We let them go back in further in the winter. The mama and her baby (1.5 yrs) tend to cuddle on the larger side. I measured and the outside area is 2000 sq ft but they are spoiled and used to roaming the wooded edges of the property and then usually end up sitting on the front porch 😂. My husband won’t move a tractor all day so maybe we should just extend their area into the woods some. Seems like a boring life after they’ve gotten to experience free ranging so I probably should not have done that in the first place.

I think they'll adjust

Ok thanks! Human guilt is real especially when you assume the goats feel the same way 😂. I’m clearly used to pets not livestock

Most animal tractor arrangements are moved once a day at most, BTW

Ah yes ok thank you!