Goats don’t ask for much. A roof over their heads and some bedding on the ground. Unlike dogs, they feel no need to come in at night and sleep soundly until morning.
For bedding, I suggest straw. Cheap, fluffy, and makes great mulch or compost after it’s all peed upon.
However, you do need to know one rule about goat bedding: Anything on the ground is bedding.
On the left you have straw (bedding) and on the right you have hay (food), but if they’re on the ground, it’s bedding. Same with leaves and branches. Goats are foragers, so stuff sticking UP is food, stuff laying DOWN is bedding. It’s infuriating to find your goat sleeping in her food, just cause some fell on the ground, but that’s the way it is. And the bedding needs to be changed frequently, depending on the sleeping space. If you have the bedding in a kennel, daily or every other day FOR SURE. Old tinkle is ICK. But if you have a larger space, you can change it less frequently. How do you know when it’s time? Just stir it around a bit every day or so. You’ll know.
Ivory
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
“they feel no need to come in at night and sleep soundly until morning”
—–
not so at our house… Hershey aka Jar-Jar Binks (looks and acts just like him… have you seen Star Wars I?) cries and cries until we come and get him. He’s one of those long-eared goats, and he sails over a 5-foot garden fence “no-problemo”. Now that we want to garden more without making more goat-proof fencing, Taffy (our sassy pygora) has been relegated to a rope on her collar, too. But guess what we found out? She actually settles down and eats when she’s tied, instead of badgering us to let her come and eat the strawberries… lavendar… greenhouse plants…
Don’t you just love them?
Yours are really cute!
I just ADORE THEM!!! And bummer on your non-sleeping goats!
Can you give us an UPDATE on those adorable goats??
@JavaLady–Currently, they are butting my backdoor in protest over how much feed I gave them. It’s 9:30 PM. They went to Vacation Bible School the other day to play the merchandise in a Jewish sacrifice store. HAHAHA! The kids feed them so much leaves, they pooped in the car all the way home. They never do that…
OK, I’ll bite. What is a “Jewish sacrifice store”?
@Lynda–HAHA! I’ve been out of town and didn’t see this comment. They were supposed to be the place LONG AGO where Jewish families bought animals for sacrifice at the temple.