Our Goats

This entire section is from our old site because apart from goats coming and going over the years, the concept of raising goats doesn’t change. Please note, all of this is for information purposes only. All of our goats are past the age of making babies. The provide manure, which we add to the plants. Nowadays, apart from providing manure, they provide us companionship. 

The advantage to starting a farm in the second half of our lives is that we’ve been able to draw on our life experience and observations to make evaluations about the way people raise and house their animals—both farm/livestock and domesticated ones.

All too often—both when we lived in the U.S. and since we moved to Puerto Rico—people think of animals’ comfort and needs as secondary or even tertiary to their own.

From chained-up dogs, horses and goats with no respite from the elements to housing that is unsanitary and quite frankly, unlivable for anyone, we knew all too well what we didn’t want for our goats. We just weren’t entirely sure what we wanted or what would be best for our goats.

On one side of our mesa (one of only three flat areas on the farm), the does and kids live communally (each doe has her own pen, with weaned kids sharing a pen). On the other lives Ravi, the sire.

Raised three feet above the ground, when goats urinate and defecate, thanks to gravity and a slatted floor, both drop below.

This serves two important purposes:

• Goats aren’t forced to lie in their own feces and urine, which is obviously more comfortable and sanitary, and
• The pellets can easily be collected and added to compost

We used 2×6 pieces of lumber for the walls, because they’re sturdy and can withstand the force of a buck in rut (more on that later).  The tropics can get oppressively hot and humid and this construction also provides ample ventilation. We live in the mountains, which is certainly cooler than at sea level and provide breezy days; temperatures, however, can get up into the 90s, with humidity sometimes hovering into the high 90s as well.

Roofs are made from wood, with sheet metal on top. This keeps things cooler inside, while providing shade from the sun.

Our pens can withstand normal winds and rain associated with summer thunderstorms. Although they could probably take the force of a tropical storm, not taking any chances, we built hurricane shelters below our house in 2013. These are made of concrete with reinforced steel.

In fact, they are as strong as our own home. Both the goat hurricane shelters and our home can survive up to 150+ mph winds.

These are important things to know when living in the tropics. They’re especially critical if you plan to keep animals.

Contrary to a commonly held belief that goats eat everything, including tin cans, goats are surprisingly very picky about their food.

Goats are herbivores who prefer foliage to grain. In fact, in most of the developing world, that’s all goats eat.

Left up to the goats—or perhaps phrased another way, goats who aren’t dependent upon human beings for their survival and nutrition—they’d eat a nutrient-rich diet consisting of leaves and vines.

We feed ours a variety of greens, among them:

• Mango leaves
• Breadfruit leaves
• Breadnut leaves
• Gandules more commonly known outside of Spanish speaking countries as pigeon peas. They can eat the entire thing, stems, branches and the actual pea pods.
• Indigo leaves
• Guava
• Johnson grass
• A certain type of bejucos (invasive vines)

We supplement with alfalfa, Timothy grass and hay. Our goats don’t eat any feed at all. 

It’s our goal to grow sufficient amounts of the above greens to be able to eliminate the need grain. This is a few years off, however.

For the first three months of their life goats nurse off their moms. Kids are naturally curious, and they mimic what their parents do, so within a couple of weeks they’re already eating leaves, vines and bejucos. Between the third and fourth week we introduce them to grains. The purpose to doing this so methodically is to stimulate the rumen. After that, we minimize their use and only have them eat greens we pick for them from the farm.

As with all mammals, the older we get, the less energetic we are, however, this doesn’t mean we don’t need to walk around, stretch our legs and so forth. It just means the kids who put on acrobatic shows, slow down to a leisurely pace as they get older.

Going back to living conditions, we’ve seen (both in the U.S. and on Puerto Rico) animals being chained up and/or living in a space not even big enough to turn around. If this isn’t acceptable to us, why should it be for an animal who is expected to give you dairy (food) and fertilizer to grow your food?

Each goat sleeps in a pen that is five feet by five feet. Their fenced in area for them to run and play is 40 feet long by 16 feet wide.

Sometimes goats just like to leave their pens to stretch their legs and have a change of scenery, and then lie down. This is normal, especially in the summer.

Kids run, jump, twirl in the air, and they learn at a young age how to head butt. This is their way of establishing pack order among themselves. They, of course, try this with adults who have no problem putting them in their place.

Ravi lives on his own, segregated from the does and kids. This is best if we want to keep him from impregnating the does before we’re ready for them to kid again. It’s also necessary to keep him from trying to mate with his own kids. He has no idea whether a doe is available to him or off-limits. ☺

His pen is eight by eight feet and his play area is equal in length and width to the doe/ kid play area.

We’re still learning about goats. From housing and play areas to the food they eat and how much water they drink to maintaining their health and what to expect when does are expecting and delivering are the result of research, trial and error, listening to our goats and asking advice of knowledgeable people, like Sadhu and our vet.

From day one we handle our goats. If we are fortunate enough to be around for their kiddings (we were for Amani, Mayani and Goatita’s firsts), we have literally been handling the kids since the moment they’re born. In the case of Mayani and Goatita, this proved pretty critical because both Talulah and Zinha and Akia and Amari were in distress. So much so that Paul had to play midwife and help deliver both sets of kids.

For the first month and sometimes two of their lives we weigh them once a week. This helps us track their growth and discover any problems early on. As long as we can pick them up and hold them we do.

We don’t just feed our goats and walk away. When we feed them greens (several times a day), we hand feed them. Although this isn’t necessary because they can certainly eat on their own, it’s our time to bond with them. Nothing says trust like hand feeding an animal.

So when we open their pens and the play area, we never want them running away from us. We want them to come to us–even if only to say hi.