Goat keeping

Goats are the gateway livestock — small enough to seem manageable, characterful enough to be genuinely rewarding company, and productive enough to feel purposeful. All of that is true. What is also true, and comes first, is that keeping them is a registered activity with a statutory welfare duty attached, and that a goat is far better at defeating your arrangements than you expect.

The honest shape of the hobby is that it is a long sequence of small daily obligations rather than an occasional pleasure. Checking, feeding, watering, in weather, every day, including the days you are ill and the fortnight you wanted to be elsewhere. That is not a warning so much as the actual description, and the people who thrive at it are the ones who wanted the routine.

Three things then decide whether it works. Company — goats are herd animals and one goat is a welfare problem, not a smaller version of two. Fencing — they climb, lean and test, and fencing that holds sheep does not hold goats. Cover — goats hate rain far more than sheep do and need somewhere dry they can always reach.

Get those three right and the rest of it is learnable. Get them wrong and you will spend the first year retrieving animals from a neighbour’s garden, which is how most goat-keeping stories start.

Before anything

CPH registration

Minimum number

Two, always

What defeats beginners

Fencing built for sheep

Daily, not weekly

Every day, twice if milking

Not covered here

Anything veterinary

1. 1

   Step 1: Spend a day with somebody who keeps goats

   Before anything else, and it is the highest-value hour in this list. Goat keepers are generally delighted to show somebody round, and an afternoon of handling, feet and fencing tells you more about whether you want this than a season of reading.

2. 2

   Step 2: Register the land

   Apply for a CPH number. Free, and it can be done up to six weeks before animals arrive. Doing it first means the rest of the paperwork — herd mark, movement recording — is in place rather than chased.

3. 3

   Step 3: Fence for goats, not for sheep

   The step people economise on and regret. Taut, well-strained stock netting at a decent height, no climbable furniture anywhere near it, gates that latch against a determined nose, and an electrified line if you can. Assume every weakness will be found within a week, because it will.

4. 4

   Step 4: Build the shelter and the handling area

   Dry, draught-free, always accessible — goats will refuse to go out in rain and need somewhere to be. A small handling area with a gate to corner an animal transforms every routine task and is what most first-year keepers wish they had built.

5. 5

   Step 5: Sort water and feed storage

   Water is the heaviest daily job; a trough on a float valve removes it. Feed must be stored where a goat cannot reach it — a goat that gets into a feed store can make itself extremely ill, and this is one of the commonest emergencies in the hobby.

6. 6

   Step 6: Find a vet who sees goats, before you have one

   Not all small-animal practices do, and goats are classed as a minority species with fewer licensed medicines. Registering with a farm or mixed practice in advance is the difference between a phone call and a crisis.

7. 7

   Step 7: Buy two, from somebody reputable, and start with wethers

   Castrated males are the easiest possible entry: no breeding decisions, no milking schedule, no kids to find homes for, and the same character. Buy from a keeper who will answer questions afterwards, and take advice on what to look for rather than on price.

• The five needs, which frame everything else — Section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 places a positive duty on the person responsible for an animal to take reasonable steps to meet its needs: a suitable environment, a suitable diet, the ability to exhibit normal behaviour patterns, any need to be housed with or apart from other animals, and protection from pain, suffering, injury and disease. It is a duty to provide rather than a prohibition on cruelty, and that is why it sits at the top of this page rather than at the bottom — it is the standard the rest of the page is written against.
• Herd marks and identification — Goats must be identified, and the requirements depend on the animal and on what you do with it. This is an area that has changed more than once and is administered by the animal health agency rather than by the council, so it is one to check current rather than to take from a page.
• Movement records — Movements of livestock on and off a holding are recorded and reported, and there are standstill rules that restrict moving other animals for a period after new stock arrives. They apply to hobby keepers. They are the requirement most often discovered late, usually when somebody wants to take a goat to a show.
• Disposal of a fallen animal — A dead farm animal cannot be buried or burned on the holding in ordinary circumstances and must go to an approved collector. It is an unwelcome thing to research at the moment it is needed, and knowing the position in advance is part of keeping livestock rather than a morbid detail.
• Selling milk or meat is a different activity entirely — Producing for your own household sits outside food business regulation; selling to anybody else brings registration, hygiene requirements and, for milk, a substantially stricter regime. The line is supply to others, and this page stops at it.
• Planning and tenancy — Field shelters, hardstanding and stables can engage planning, and agricultural tenancies, covenants and grazing licences frequently restrict livestock. Worth resolving before buying animals rather than after.

• Fencing — The largest spend and the one that decides everything. Taut stock netting, strained properly at corners and ends, at a height that accounts for climbing, with nothing beside it a goat can stand on. Electrified line as insurance. The stock fencing estimator on this site costs the materials.
• Shelter — Dry, draught-free, always open to them, with enough room that a bullied animal can get away from a dominant one. Goats will stand in a doorway watching rain rather than go out in it, which is a design constraint rather than a quirk.
• A handling area — A small pen or race where a goat can be cornered calmly. It converts foot trimming, health checks and medication from a wrestling match into a routine, and it is the most under-built thing on most small holdings.
• Hayrack and troughs — Goats waste any forage they can stand on or foul, so a rack rather than a pile. Water troughs on a float valve if you can plumb them; carried water otherwise, twice a day, all winter.
• A secure feed store — Vermin-proof and, more importantly, goat-proof. A goat that breaks into concentrate feed can make itself seriously ill, and this is a genuine emergency rather than a nuisance.
• Foot trimming shears — Feet need attention every six to ten weeks, forever. It is the routine task that most defines the rhythm of goat keeping and the one to be shown in person rather than to read about.
• Milking equipment, only if you are milking — A stand, buckets, filters, and somewhere clean. The stand is not optional — milking a goat that is not on one is a losing argument.
• Transport — A trailer or a suitable vehicle, and the licence position for towing. Goats go to shows, to a vet and occasionally to a new home, and the movement rules apply each time.

The first year of goat keeping is almost entirely about the routine becoming ordinary. What comes after it is a set of genuine forks, and they are worth knowing about early because two of them change what you need before you would otherwise think about it.

• Getting properly good at the routine — Which is not a small ambition. Feet every six to ten weeks without a fight, a herd that comes when called, fencing that has stopped being an argument, and knowing your animals well enough that you notice one is off before it looks off. Most of the difference between a hard year and an easy one is here.
• Milking, which is a different hobby bolted on — It is a twice-daily commitment that does not move for weather, holidays or illness, and it is the point at which goats stop fitting around a life. It also requires a doe to have kidded, which brings breeding with it. People arrive at milking wanting the milk and stay for the routine or leave because of it.
• Breeding, and knowing what you will do with the kids — The question that decides whether this is a good idea is the one asked last: what happens to the male kids. Every breeding decision produces roughly half of them and there is no large market. Being clear about that answer before mating rather than after is the difference between a plan and a problem.
• Fibre, if you kept the right breed — Angora and cashmere-producing goats are a genuinely different keeping proposition with shearing or combing on a schedule, and they connect into a whole craft world on the other side. This is a decision made at the point of buying the animals rather than later.
• Showing — Breed societies run classes, and showing is where people learn conformation, handling and a great deal about their own stock from people who have kept them for decades. It is also the cheapest route into a network of experienced keepers, which is worth more than any of the rosettes.
• More land, more species, or both — The natural drift is towards a smallholding, and the comparison on this site between a smallholding and an allotment is the honest version of what that means: livestock replaces weekends, and nothing can be left for a fortnight. Adding sheep is the commonest second species and they are less similar to goats than people expect.

• Pygmy and dwarf goats — Kept as companions rather than for production. Small, hardy, extremely characterful, and the usual entry point. Still livestock in law and still a decade-long commitment, which is the fact the size disguises.
• Dairy breeds — Saanen, Toggenburg, British Alpine, Anglo-Nubian and their crosses, bred for milk yield. The most productive and by far the most demanding — a dairy goat means breeding, kidding, a twice-daily milking schedule for months, and a decision about male kids.
• Fibre goats — Angora for mohair and cashmere-bearing types. A separate craft attached to the animal, with shearing or combing on a schedule and a fleece to do something with. Overlaps directly with hand spinning and natural dyeing.
• Meat breeds — Boer and crosses. A different set of decisions and one this page names plainly rather than avoiding: keeping animals for meat brings slaughter arrangements and rules with it, and it is a choice to make deliberately at the start.
• Wethers as companions — Castrated males, kept purely for company and character. The easiest goats to keep by a wide margin and the answer for most people who want goats rather than goat products. Frequently the companions for a single milking doe.
• Conservation and scrub grazing — Goats used deliberately to clear and hold back woody growth, sometimes on conservation sites. Genuinely effective and increasingly organised, and it overlaps with the conservation grazing branch of smallholding.
• Showing — Breed classes at agricultural shows, with societies, standards and a season. A whole sub-hobby with its own preparation, and the reason a lot of keepers first meet the movement rules.
• How this differs from smallholding — Smallholding is published here as the orientation to running a whole holding — the registrations, the infrastructure, the year’s shape across several enterprises. This page is one species in depth. If you are deciding whether to keep livestock at all, start there; if you have decided on goats, this is the page.

Keeping goats is a routine rather than a project, and the routine is what people either love or leave. None of what follows is veterinary — it is the husbandry a keeper does, and where it touches a veterinary question it says so and stops.

• Twice daily, briefly — Check every animal is up, eating, and behaving normally. Water available and not frozen or fouled. That is most of it, and it takes ten minutes — the commitment is the frequency rather than the duration.
• What a check is actually looking for — A goat that is standing apart, hunched, not chewing, or not coming to feed. Goats hide illness and deteriorate quickly, so the value of the check is entirely in noticing a change from that animal’s normal. Knowing your goats is the skill; everything after noticing is a phone call.
• Feet, every six to ten weeks — The defining recurring task and the one that most shapes the rhythm of the year. Overgrown feet cause lameness and lameness causes everything else. Learn it by being shown by somebody who does it rather than from a description, and do it on a stand or in a handling pen rather than in an argument.
• Water, daily and heavier than you think — Goats drink a great deal, more when milking, and they will refuse fouled water. In winter this is the job that gets old — a piped supply or a trough on a float valve is the single most worthwhile piece of infrastructure for anybody keeping goats long term.
• Forage and feed — Hay through the winter and whenever grazing is poor, in a rack rather than a pile because goats waste anything they can stand on. Sudden changes of feed are the thing to avoid, for reasons that are digestive and genuinely serious.
• Bedding and mucking out — Weekly or as needed, depending on system. It is the messiest recurring job and it produces a large quantity of exactly the material a compost heap wants, which is the neat closing of a loop between this subject and composting.
• Fencing, walked regularly — Not an annual inspection. Walk the line looking for what a goat could stand on rather than for holes, because goats leave rather than break out, and a fallen branch or a moved water butt is a new escape route.
• Seasonal: the wet and the flies — British winters mean mud, and mud means feet. Summer means flies and the conditions that come with them. Both are managed by rotation, drainage and moving feeding points rather than by treating the animals, and both are the reason a small paddock struggles.
• Records — Movements on and off, medicines given, and what you noticed when. Required for some of it and useful for all of it — a record of what normal looked like is what makes a change visible.
• Everything with a needle, a dose or a diagnosis — Veterinary. Parasite control, vaccination, mineral supplementation and treatment are not on this list and are not on this page, and the reasons are set out in the problems section.