Failed experiment: Goats in the woods
So, my goats-in-the-woods experiment
lasted all of about two hours. I let the girls loose, settled down to
write...and soon heard Artemesia yelling at the top of her lungs.
Abigail had circled around to the part of our boundary that has the
lowest fence and had hopped right over, but our doeling's stubby little
legs didn't allow her to follow. I guess it's a good thing that
Artemesia is part Nubian since there was no missing her anguished yells
as she was left 
behind.
Or maybe our doeling was just telling on her big sister? Either way, I
pulled Abigail out of the garden before she could do any damage, then I
stuffed both goats back into the pasture with the honeysuckle trees shown above.
For experiment number
two, I decided to open the door on the far side of the starplate coop,
meaning that our goats would have to walk through some rough terrain to
circle around the fenced pastures and reach our core homestead. Sure
enough, when I came back from walking Lucy, I discovered that our goats
had decided to explore in the opposite direction. But Artemesia was
yelling again, and I got worried (even though our doeling sometimes just
likes to yell) and went to see what was up. No one was in trouble, but
both goats followed me right home, negating that experiment.
Next, I decided to try tethering Abigail
on the far side of the starplate coop. I figured that Artemesia would
stay close to her companion, and that everyone would be happy. So when I
heard non-Nubian yelling I guessed that our doe must have gotten her
chain hung up. Nope. Artemesia had decided to wander far afield in
search of honeysuckle, and her big sister was having a fit at being left
alone. So, once again, I stuffed the girls back into the pasture for
safe keeping. I guess they're stuck eating hay
now except when I take them out on monitored walks...unless I come up
with another supposedly bright technique for letting them run wild in
the woods.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Thats the one thing you can count on with your goats; they'll always tell you when something is wrong. If some of them get out the other ones always tell on them by screaming their brains out. My goats are nice and quiet the rest of the time. Though, on the flip side, if they're all out getting into trouble it stays quiet. lol...
if you have any cheep fencing around (say snow fence) how would it work if you fenced off a large area of woods? Would the goats stay in there or would they escape right away?
I have my goats in a pasture where one side is cattle panels and the other side is 6foot concrete reinforcing mesh. So far no escapes.
I've lived on a farm where goat-walks were the norm (5-12 goats, 1-2 hr walks twice a day) and I found after being introduced to several lush spots in the woods, they will vary their feed and wander between them as nutrition and their tastes dictate, usually i find a spot in the middle and blow on my harmonica or carve sticks and sing goat songs. I have a detailed list of goat fodder/browse species by month (NorthEast specific) i could upload if folks are interested.