Thinking About Getting Goats? The Messy Truth You Need to Hear

Thinking about owning goats? Forget the picture-perfect Instagram posts—goat ownership is messy, demanding, and far from easy. In this episode of Muddy Paws and Hairballs, goat expert and homesteader Deborah Niemann debunks common myths and reveals what it really takes to raise happy, healthy goats.

We dive into essential topics every prospective goat owner needs to know:

• Goats are not house pets—understanding their unique behaviors
• Complex (and costly) nutritional needs for proper goat care
• The long-term commitment goat ownership requires
• Fencing and shelter must-haves to prevent your goats from escaping
• Finding a knowledgeable veterinarian experienced in goat care
• Goat personalities: their quirks, emotions, and social needs
• Top resources for learning about goat care, including courses and education

Whether you're dreaming of fresh goat milk, homemade cheese, or just curious about life with goats, Deborah’s candid insights and expert advice will help you make informed decisions before taking the leap into goat ownership.

🔗 Learn more about Deborah, her resources, and her podcast at:
Thrifty Homesteader
Deborah’s book on Amazon
For the Love of Goats Podcast on Apple

Quick Update: We’re taking a short break and will be back with a batch of fresh episodes starting August 10! 
In the meantime, binge your way through 100+ past episodes packed with pet-saving sanity—and maybe even solve that one issue that's driving you (and your pet) nuts. 
Catch up, take notes, and we’ll see you soon! 

Chapters

• 0:32 Goat Reality Check
• 3:43 Goat Ownership Realities
• 15:52 Goat Ownership Considerations
• 24:44 Goat Care and Veterinary Considerations
• 35:37 Choosing a Pet Goat

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:33

Oh, you think you want a goat. How cute. Bless your heart. And for those of you not from Texas, bless your heart is not a blessing, it's a Texan's nice way of saying you're an idiot Because you're picturing lazy afternoons with your little goat buddies frolicking in the yard, nibbling grass, like some Pinterest perfect farm fantasy. Well, buckle up, buttercup, because today we're going to smack that goat delusion right out of you like a 200-pound buck in full run.

Amy Castro: 1:00

Goats are not dogs. They don't fetch, they don't cuddle and they sure as hell don't care about your feelings, unless you've got a pocket full of food. They scream like banshees, they annihilate all vegetation and other things in their path and they can escape from fences that could hold back SEAL Team 6. And yet people keep making horrible goat-related life choices. That's why today I am joined by Debra Neiman, homesteader, goat expert and host of the podcast For the Love of Goats. Debra has seen it all, from dreamers who think they're getting a backyard petting zoo to the poor souls who realize way too late that they've actually adopted hell on hooves. By the end of this episode, you're going to either be running for the hills or possibly doubling down on your goat chaos dreams, but at least you'll be fully prepared for the mayhem ahead. Either way, don't say we didn't warn you. So, debra, let's do this.

Deborah Niemann: 1:52

Welcome to the show. Yes, oh, my gosh, I love that introduction. That's fabulous. Thank you. So, debra, let's do this. Welcome to the show. Yes, oh, my gosh, I love that introduction. That's fabulous. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. I was sitting over here trying not to hurt myself laughing because everything you said was so true and so accurate.

Amy Castro: 2:06

Yes, I've lived it personally, I've lived it vicariously through other people and obviously nobody knows this. But I met Debra very recently at a thing called PodFest and we were in the same session, kind of sitting across the room from each other, and there's not a ton of pet podcasters or animal related podcasters at PodFest. I know of one other other than myself and Debra and so when she asked a question and she's like I've got a goat podcast, I thought, ooh, I've got to grab that lady after this session and get her on my show, because I think people get themselves in over their heads because they've created this fantasy or they've watched a video on TikTok or something like that and they see people living with goats and other critters and they think that that's what life is like, just what they're seeing in that video, and they don't see all the other stuff that can make life relatively miserable if you're not prepared for it.

Deborah Niemann: 2:57

Yeah, that is a fantastic summary of where a lot of people are coming from. A lot of times people ask me like, do you have goats? And it's like, well, yeah, of course I have goats, and so that means I have people calling me to buy goats and so many people who contact me. It is so, so, sadly obvious that the only thing that they know about goats is what they have seen on those entertainment videos. You know they don't know what they eat. They don't know what they need for housing or fencing. They think it can live in their house like a dog that they can house train it. It's going to sleep in their bed. You know they have completely unrealistic expectations.

Amy Castro: 3:37

Yeah Well, and even when you know, obviously our goal with this episode is not to tell people that goats are horrible creatures. Well, maybe that's not Deborah's goal.

Amy Castro: 3:46

My goal might be to tell you a little bit that there can be horrible creatures, but I think you can't stress enough with any type of an animal that it's a long-term commitment and you need to know what that commitment is going to entail. Because even with adopting out dogs and cats we've run into that in our rescue is that I can tell people over and over again, just as a quick example, a lady that recently adopted a kitten and I said when you get home, don't just open the carrier and let this cat out to run through your 3,000 foot house, because it'll quickly find the worst place, like under your bed, to decide that's where it's going to go potty. And you'll discover it in a couple of weeks, after it's become a great habit. And of course, that's exactly what she did. And then she's wanting to return the cat because it's pooping all over her house.

Amy Castro: 4:31

Well, why is it all over your house? So we're hoping that you listen, listen to us, listen to me, linda. We're telling you the truth here. I'm trying to save you from a lot of pain. And the goat, you know, or whatever the animal is.

Deborah Niemann: 4:46

Yeah, exactly, all right.

Amy Castro: 4:48

So let's let's talk about some of the misconceptions, because you mentioned about living in the house being like a dog. So let's dispel the myth that goats are like dogs, because I can see why people might get that idea. You know, the person on the video goes out, the goat comes running. It follows them around just like a dog. But what's the difference that people really need to understand? I mean, I know there's tons of them and we're going to get into some of those others separately, but just generally, in your experience, Well, goats are vegetarians, first of all, and contrary to the myth that they will eat anything, including 10 cans, oh yeah like the old cartoons.

Deborah Niemann: 5:27

Yeah, they actually have a very sensitive digestive system and they have four stomachs, including a rumen, which is one of the big differences between them and us, and dogs and cats and monogastric animals you know, those of us with one stomach. So that rumen is a giant fermentation vat. It needs to be working 24-7. And so when a goat is out on pasture, where it belongs, it's going to spend a huge part of its stay eating. It's basically going to keep eating until its rumen is full. So that's why you'll see the left side will sometimes just be huge. And then, once their rumen is full, they go lay down somewhere, they burp up everything, they just ate. I know, I know, I'm like goats are so lucky they get to eat everything twice. Yeah, it's so special.

Deborah Niemann: 6:22

Yeah. So they burp it all up, you know, one mouthful at a time. They chew it all again and then send it back down to their second stomach. So how are they going to do that in your house?

Amy Castro: 6:34

Right. And how are they going to even eat all day? I mean, can you imagine your average person's yard? You know you're going to have to be providing a ton of not cheap food and varieties of things for them to eat. It can't just eat your lawn. And I think that's another huge thing that people don't understand.

Deborah Niemann: 6:52

You're not going to mow your lawn for you. They're actually browsers, not grazers. And that does not mean they like to shop. It means browse is like bushes, and so if goats had their pick of anything in the world to eat, they would walk around eating bushes and baby trees and things like that. So you know, one man was just so shocked when I tried to explain to him. No, you cannot teach the goat to not eat your rose bushes. That would be like trying to teach a dog not to eat steak. You know, yeah, like that's just their nature.

Deborah Niemann: 7:28

When people say goats will eat anything, they mean that they're going to eat the stuff in the pasture that nobody else is going to eat. They'll eat poison ivy and they're fine with it. Isn't that crazy, yeah? And so they're going to eat all the floribunda roses that cows completely ignore. This is why ranchers love to get them out there, because floribunda roses are so invasive and goats just love them, and so they eat all that stuff. So you've got to keep that in mind, the fact that a dog you can feed once or twice a day, and that's it, and that's not how it works with goats Like. I don't know anybody who wants to have a hay feeder in their house. Yeah, no kidding.

Amy Castro: 8:10

And just the cost of hay if you haven't priced that out lately, check that out and then storing. And it's messy. And I didn't realize that because when I bought this house we have a little pasture out front and the size it was plenty big enough for the amount of goats that we had. But there's not really other than the stuff that kind of grows up alongside the fence which they made very quick work of. There's not a lot of stuff to eat out there for them. So we had to move them around and boy, any chance they could get into my expensive landscaping and decimate it. They did. Yeah, and the poison ivy thing learn that the hard way. Because as they're eating that poison ivy, guess where it's getting All over their faces, on their mouths, and guess what they do next. They rub it on your bare legs and guess what you have next A nice raging case of poison ivy. So yeah, that's fun, that's always fun.

Deborah Niemann: 9:00

Yeah, so they have an urge to eat all day long. And just because you don't have appropriate goat food doesn't mean that they're not going to check it out and, in the wild, if they take one bite of a plant, that gives them a bellyache they just know.

Deborah Niemann: 9:18

I'm never going to go back to that plant.

Deborah Niemann: 9:19

Well, in your house, if they just take one bite of a plastic bag that can completely block up their rumen and kill them.

Deborah Niemann: 9:27

On my website I have pictures that someone gave me because someone sold her a baby goat bottle fed, which they kept in their house for two months, no problem, thought, everything was just wonderful, and then one day they realized something was off and they took the goat to the vet and when the vet did surgery he removed four or five of the plastic pimples from the Mr Pimple Popper game. A plastic bag, hair ties, several balloons, all these things that this baby goat had been eating, that it should not have been eating because these things are not edible. But the baby goat was old enough now to be eating solid foods. It wasn't happy with just its bottle anymore and because these people were not providing it with hay all day, it went't happy with just its bottle anymore and because these people were not providing it with hay all day, it went looking for something else, and sadly, the baby goat died, and so that's why, when I heard about this, I said can I use these pictures?

Deborah Niemann: 10:28

put them on my website so that people can see? This is what can happen if you try to keep a goat in the house.

Amy Castro: 10:35

Yeah, and then, if you think about it, if you're a nice person which I know everybody listening to this podcast is a nice, animal loving person Imagine how you're going to feel when you realize that was 100% your fault. I mean, I'm sorry to say it, but that's what we do on Muddy Paws. We're telling the truth and it's like it's 100% preventable. Well, maybe not, because you can't maybe prevent a balloon that happens to blow into your appropriate outdoor enclosure. However, when you've got it in the house, it's just it's your fault, it's not the goat's fault. Let's talk about poop Cause. That's another thing that I think I didn't realize. Number one, how much they poop and how it just kind of comes on out when they're walking along, like it's not like a plan thing, it's not like a walking thing, or am I wrong? Did I interpret that incorrectly?

Deborah Niemann: 11:14

No, they totally just let the poop fly when the urge hits them. You can teach a baby goat to pee on a towel, but you can't teach them the difference between a towel and a pair of blue jeans and an area rug. But with poop, no, the poop just flies. You know, like you said, they're just, they're walking along and just shooting out, yeah, yeah.

Amy Castro: 11:40

And and what about emotionally? Like you know, you see these again, videos of people loving and cuddling and hugging the baby goats. But the goats do they enjoy human affection in the same way, or maybe not even the same? Do they enjoy it?

Deborah Niemann: 12:00

And do they give it kind of in a similar way that dogs would, or are they just kind of like get off me? Yeah, they're not going to be exactly like dogs, and this is why a lot of people want to get bottle babies, because if you take a baby, that's a newborn and you feed it a bottle and you're the only living creature it knows it's going to bond to you. But the downside to that is that they are herd animals, so first of all, you should never have just one.

Amy Castro: 12:21

Yeah, so that's going into our second myth is you can't just have one Otherwise you can have a miserable goat right.

Deborah Niemann: 12:27

Yeah, and then if you are the herd mate, you have to be with it 24, seven, and that's what people don't get. You know, they're like so they get the bottle, so they get the bottle baby, and they've got it in their house. They're giving it a bottle. It gets bigger. They're like oh, this is not going to work anymore. I need to put you outside in the backyard and it starts screaming nonstop because it is now alone, like mama, just left, left, and it is going to scream nonstop. So again, these were some of the things. We've had goats since 2002. And we learned some of these things the hard way.

Amy Castro: 13:06

Yeah, so we learned those things the tough way sometimes.

Amy Castro: 13:09

So yeah, so you're, so you're in for all of the chaos that we talked about so far. You're in for the fact that you can't just have one, so you're going to have some kind of a chaos that we talked about so far. You're in for the fact that you can't just have one, so you're going to have some kind of a small herd. What about the myth that they're pretty easy to care for? Because, I mean, I found them relatively easy to care for only from the standpoint of having had horses before and knowing what goes into the hoof trimming and things like that. Not that that's easy to do, but where do people get into trouble there?

Deborah Niemann: 13:36

You know it sounds easy and in fact the reality is again, because goats are browsers, they actually have really high mineral requirements. Their nutrient requirements are very strict and so if you just get a couple castrated males as pets, you might be able to just stick them in the pasture, make sure they've got pasture and hay and water and trim their hooves and stuff. But if you're going to have goats for milk, if you're going to have babies, then you're going to have a world of fertility problems if those goats are not getting the proper nutrients, Like goats are not going to come into heat, they're not going to get pregnant, they're not going to stay pregnant. That was a problem we had in the beginning.

Deborah Niemann: 14:17

We had all kinds of problems and we didn't know that our goats were copper deficient and so many people are like oh, I'm just going to mix my own feed, I don't want to buy a commercial feed. And it's like you know what you could do that with cows and sheep because they're naturally grazers, and what you could do that with cows and sheep because they're naturally grazers and so their mineral needs are very different. But you can't do that with goats. I don't know anyone who's really had productive, healthy goats who didn't use a commercial feed for their milkers, and the pregnant goats. You know, for the males that's a whole different world, because an intact male is just producing sperm, so that's not very hard, but I mean they do still need the correct minerals, so they still have to have a goat specific mineral mix.

Amy Castro: 15:02

So imagine that's like the difference between going to the local PetSmart and getting a good bag of dog food versus the people that go through the trouble of trying to make it from scratch and then having to get the supplemental minerals and mixing those in. And you've got to get it right, otherwise you're not going to have healthy animals.

Deborah Niemann: 15:20

Yeah, in fact you know what one lady said to me. She's like I just don't buy this. I make my own dog food. I don't understand why I can't make my own goat food. And I said your dog is only trying to sustain itself. It is not trying to grow babies and make milk for your whole family. Like you're asking a lot, it is not trying to grow babies and make milk for your whole family. Good point You're asking a lot of these goats and if you're going to ask a lot of them, then you're going to have to give them the kind of nutrition that you can't just get from just mixing up a few grains and herbs and stuff. Like it really has to be concentrated minerals.

Amy Castro: 15:53

Yeah, so you're talking about goats having babies, things like that, and I know this is probably shocking to somebody that keeps goats. But if you would explain to people, if people want goat milk and they've got this fantasy that they're going to have goat milk for their family and they're going to make cheese and they're going to make soap and whatever else, can they just get a couple of female goats and just milk them and that's how it works.

Deborah Niemann: 16:15

No, you know what it's so funny the first time somebody called me. And she called me and said she wanted to buy a couple goats because she wanted to make cheese and stuff. And then she said so what do I do to get them to start making milk? And I did not even understand the question. I was like what? And she's like well, I'm going to, I want to make cheese, so what do I have to do to get them to start making milk? And then it finally clicked that she didn't know that they had to get pregnant and have babies and that they're actually making the milk for their babies. And then you could. You know, after the babies are big enough and you know eating enough other foods and stuff, you can start using some of the milk and how long does that last?

Deborah Niemann: 17:00

At least a couple months. The babies need to be on mom full time for at least a couple months. I want my Nigerian dwarf babies to be 20 pounds before I start separating them overnight. I start separating them overnight Because by the time they're 20 pounds, they're big enough their tummy's big enough that they can actually consume a decent amount of solid food to help them keep growing. But until then, they really need to drink their calories, you know, and get all the protein and calcium that they're only going to get from milk in such a concentrated way, Right.

Amy Castro: 17:33

So it's kind of like a window of opportunity. So basically, just so everybody's getting this right from milk in such a concentrated way, right? So it's kind of like a window of opportunity. So basically, just so everybody's getting this right. If you think you're going to get goat milk, you have to have a goat, you have to have some way to get that goat pregnant. Now you've got babies, so now you have multiple goats, which you probably started with. Your herd has grown. You've got to let them have their share of the milk. Then you're going to get a window of opportunity where you can get some milk and milk that goat. And then does that go on forever, deborah, or does that dry up, and now we have to start the whole thing over again.

Deborah Niemann: 18:00

Yeah, so it does not go on forever. In the commercial world they usually rebreed cows and goats and sheep every year so that they get that high production that you get within the first year. Sometimes you know, if you've got some goats with good genetics you can milk them for a couple of years before you breed them again. But there is a limit, you know, and then you're going to have to breed them again and have more babies, and I always tell people that you've got to have a plan for those babies you know?

Amy Castro: 18:30

Yeah, Because you're going to eat. You're either going to be keeping them and then it's a matter, are you?

Deborah Niemann: 18:44

going to breed those as well. And now you've got exponential amount of animals, Are you going?

Amy Castro: 18:46

to spay and spay. I know they use castrate for the males. What word do they use for the females Hysterectomy?

Deborah Niemann: 18:49

no-transcript. No, you just fix the boys. A hysterectomy in a goat is such a big deal that a lot of times they just do an ovorectomy, and they usually only do that if the goat has some kind of a medical problem where the ovaries have to be removed because they're just cycling nonstop. That's a problem too. I always tell people if you're just going to have pets, get a couple of castrated males, and a reputable breeder is going to castrate them for you. They're not going to give you an intact male.

Amy Castro: 19:23

Let's talk about that intact male though, because that's the other thing if you want to have babies or whatever. So when you don't castrate a goat, what's the fun of that other than the fact that they can reproduce?

Deborah Niemann: 19:39

So this is one of the things that really turns people off from goats. This is the goat version of like cologne. I guess that turns on the ladies, because male goats will pee on themselves, and when I first heard that I thought, oh, I guess they're just messy. But no, it actually it's not like your husband missing the toilet or your son or whoever else. Yeah, no no, they have directional control and it is completely mind blowing to most people when they first see it, because he can basically turn around and pee on his face.

Amy Castro: 20:09

And they do. And it's very funny to watch, but not great to smell.

Deborah Niemann: 20:12

Right, yeah, exactly. And this is why, like I really, really, you know, people are like oh, I want all my goats to be bottle fed, so they're friendly. I'm like I don't want any of my bucks to be bottle fed, because then they think I'm their girlfriend. And so, when you know, I have literally like put a buck in with a doe in a stall in the barn and gone over there to check on him and he comes and jumps up on the door and starts blubbering in my face and I'm just like, ew, get away from me.

Amy Castro: 20:44

Yeah, it's nasty.

Deborah Niemann: 20:46

It is so nasty and it's like it's really the bottle baby, the bottle bucks that do that because they don't have that separation. They're like, oh, you're one of me, I'm one of you.

Amy Castro: 20:58

I'm going to get my stink all over you, yeah, yeah.

Deborah Niemann: 21:02

And they'll pee on your does as they're dancing around doing their little pre-mating dance. They might pee on her, they might pee on her udder, and so that's where goat milk has a reputation for tasting nasty. Because if you let a buck run with your does, that's what they do they pee on them, they rub on them. The bucks need to be kept separate from the does to avoid unwanted breedings number one. But also, if you're milking your does, the milk is going to be nasty if the bucks are rubbing on them and peeing on them and all this kind of stuff.

Amy Castro: 21:37

Yeah, so you have to basically set dates and appointments to make that happen, right?

Deborah Niemann: 21:42

Exactly If you want to keep everybody separate.

Amy Castro: 21:44

Yep. Well, I don't know about you, debra, but this sounds all like an awesome opportunity. Not really an awesome opportunity, not really. But you know another thing even if people have gotten to this point and they're like, I still think I want to do this. What about the legalities of just having goats in your yard?

Deborah Niemann: 22:04

Yeah, you really need to know what the laws are, and not just the laws, but also any covenants you might have. You know so many people just assume that it's going to be legal for them. My daughter lives in South Dakota on 10 acres right now and it is not legal for her to have more than four goats.

Amy Castro: 22:21

There's a limit.

Deborah Niemann: 22:22

And the other thing is, even if it's legal, then there's still going to be things like noise ordinances that you need to worry about. You know, there was a lady years ago who got a weather and a doe from me and after a year and a half she called me up one day in an absolute panic because she had gotten a ticket from the city and they said that they were going to be fining her $100 a day for every day that those goats were still in her yard because they were breaking the noise ordinance. And that was a doe, and so this is why I said earlier like, just get a couple of weathers.

Amy Castro: 23:01

And a weather is a castrated male.

Deborah Niemann: 23:04

Yes, a weather is a castrated male. A doe is going to come into heat every 21 days and she might be kind of quiet and coy and shy, but she might also be screaming at the top of her lungs. She could be a dirty hoe, she could, yeah. So she could be screaming at the top of her lungs, hoping that a buck hears her and comes and finds her. Yeah, that's what was happening with this lady is that, you know, every three weeks her goat was screaming her head off for about 24 hours. After a year and a half, her neighbors were like enough, no more, we can't. We can't deal with this, yeah.

Amy Castro: 23:40

Yeah, and imagine if you're not an acreage and you're really close to your neighbors, it's not going to be appreciated. You don't need that.

Deborah Niemann: 23:46

And she was in a typical. She was in a typical suburban subdivision.

Amy Castro: 23:49

Yeah, bad choices.

Deborah Niemann: 23:51

Bad life choices? Yep, I don't. I really don't sell goats to people who live in subdivisions anymore and I try to explain to them why and like I really hope you're not going to just go find somebody else to sell you a goat, because this could end really badly.

Amy Castro: 24:05

Yeah, I know, and hopefully they believe you. I spend a lot of time telling people like I understand your intentions are good, but I've been doing this for X number of years and I've heard the same thing and here's how it turns out. And you know, if they go find somebody else, then I can't control that, but I highly encourage them to think about it before they go down that path. So I find it fascinating that when we talked about this, you said I want to discourage people from having goats and I'm like good, because I don't think they should have them either. I want to discourage people from having goats and I'm like good, because I don't think they should have them either, but yet your podcast is called For the Love of Goats. So if somebody is still in and they want to try to pull this off successfully, what are some things that they need to consider? Like I know, the fencing was a huge issue for us. What are some guidelines there?

Deborah Niemann: 24:50

So you need goat-proof fencing. Which one thing you do not want is barbed wire. You know it's made for cattle and horses which have really, really thick skin. Goats have really soft, thin skin. I actually personally helped two people who had does that ripped open their udder on barbed wire, and one of them took months and months to heal because milk was leaking out of that wound 24-7 as the goat was producing it. The other one the family, finally decided to put her down because they could not get it to heal. So definitely no barbed wire, because that's just going to injure your goat and it's not going to stop them. The goat's going to get ripped up as they're running through it.

Deborah Niemann: 25:38

Woven wire is usually very good. If you have electric, you need to make sure that it is close enough, like six inches apart, maybe nine inches if you've got big goats, because goats learn a lot from each other and it only takes one to run through there for the others to go. Oh, you can do that, Okay. And then they do it too and they're herd animals. So they're like oh, my buddy, just oh, and they run through. They get shocked. Oh, that wasn't so bad, I just got shocked as I was running. Yeah, it was quick. It was quick, it was worth it. Yeah, so woven wire is my favorite. If you've got big goats, you might want to put a strand of electric across the top so that they don't jump up and then put their feet on top of it and just fall over, Just kind of push down and slide over.

Amy Castro: 26:27

yeah.

Deborah Niemann: 26:28

Yeah, so if you've got the electric on top and they put their feet up there, they're going to get shocked and then they'll just jump back. The electric on top and they put their feet up there, they're going to get shocked and then they'll just jump back. But with smaller goats like the Nigerian dwarfs or pygmies, woven wire is usually your best option.

Amy Castro: 26:40

Right and so and you mentioned that. You know. Just, we've talked about how they're somewhat indiscriminate in what they eat. So if you've got apple trees that you think you're going to get apples from, or anything else that's out there is going to be pretty much fair game for them. What about vet care, just remembered for them. You know a person might say, well, I take my dog once a year and that's all. And you know we mentioned the hoof trimming too. That's another thing that, yeah, theoretically you can do that yourself if you have the right tools. But it's not easy for anyone who goes and pays the $10 or $15 to go get your dog's nails done. You're not going to want to do goat nails. Like, if you can't do your dog's nails yourself, there ain't no way in hell you're going to do goat feet by yourself. That's my opinion. It's it was a rassling. It was a rassling job and it was a two person job to do it and we only had two goats at the time.

Deborah Niemann: 27:29

Yeah, if you don't. We have milkers, so we usually put our goats on the milk stand to trim their hooves. But if you just have a couple of pet goats, like the castrated males, then you're not going to have a milk stand. And so, yeah, it is a two-person job because one person is going to have to hold them while the other person trims. So it's not a horribly hard thing to learn, but it is something you have to learn. And you do have to do it because you know, just like dog nails, they're going to get way overgrown if you don't do it. Unless, you know, unless they're out there climbing on a mountain, because people are like, oh, who trims them in nature? Mother nature, remember. They're from the desert, so they were walking on sand all the time. They're walking on rocks, so they're naturally wearing them down. Most of us are putting them on a lush green carpet of grass.

Amy Castro: 28:17

That does not wear them down at all.

Deborah Niemann: 28:20

Yeah, so we have to do it. So you asked about the vet, and this is the thing that usually really shocks people. I have an application now that people have to fill out before I will even consider talking to them. Before I will even consider talking to them and about half the people the answers on here are so bad that they're just completely rejected, because it's obvious. They've just seen the TikTok videos and their goat's going to sleep in a dog crate in the laundry room or in their bed, which is totally unacceptable and they don't know what it eats. They have no fencing, which is totally unacceptable, and they don't know what it eats. They have no fencing. You know one woman, in response to what do you have for shelter, she said 10 acres and like, okay, you don't even know what the word shelter means, like your goats. Just give me running out there on 10 acres with the coyotes.

Deborah Niemann: 29:12

But the thing that really surprises people is that it is very hard to find a goat vet in most areas. So there are a few hundred vets who are members of the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners. Goats are small ruminants and they are considered a minor species. Most of your vets only see dogs and cats. That's it. They know nothing about goats.

Deborah Niemann: 29:37

And when I was new, I was really upset with our dog and cat vet that she would not see my goats, and she said, trust me, I would not be doing you any favors by seeing your goats. You need to see a goat vet. And I am so glad that she had the nerve to stand up to me and to say that, because I some of the worst horror stories I have heard have been from people who somehow convinced their vet and I'm not judging the vets, because I don't know what I would do if I had a hysterical person in my office with a goat and labor or something but some of the worst horror stories I have heard are people who got their dog and cat vet to treat their goat because they just made so many mistakes. And so you really have to make sure that there is a vet in your area who not just sees goats but sees enough of them to know what the current research is.

Deborah Niemann: 30:35

There's a lot of stuff that you know your vet needs to know to be able to take care of your goats for you, so you definitely want to.

Amy Castro: 30:42

I would say definitely, look into that before you start looking for goats to see is there a vet that services your area and what is the cost? Like you know, we have a great equine vet and you know, because I don't even have a horse trailer, you know, for our, for our rescue horses, and so I mean I could get one if I had to. But you know she comes to the, to the rescue ranch, but you know there's a there's a house call fee that goes along with that and that can add up quickly and depending upon if they are the only game in town. You know we had a situation with a goat that got very badly injured and you know she wasn't even in like in town trying to find somebody.

Amy Castro: 31:38

And then there was actually another situation with a sick goat. My daughter and I dragged the goat out, put her in the back of my car and I'm calling other places Like can you at least see this goat? At the last minute, because my vet was two hours away and this, this animal was in dire need of medical attention and it did not go well. She actually died. So you got to think all that through and see how accessible that's going to be and what's your backup plan if there's an emergency.

Deborah Niemann: 32:03

Yeah, exactly. And please, please, please, I beg you, do not believe anyone who tells you that you don't need a vet. You can raise your goats on a Facebook group because you don't know what you don't know and you know you think, oh, there's 40,000 people in this group. There must be, you know, they can totally tell me everything I need. Well, no, they can't. You know, I stay away from those groups because I could spend all day long correcting misinformation and if you ask a question and you get 50 people giving you all kinds of different answers, you don't know who's right and who's wrong and in the meantime your goat could die. Yeah.

Amy Castro: 32:44

And just because somebody had luck with something, it's kind of like the old school, like our grandparents told us or, for some of you who are younger, maybe your great-grandparents when the whole seatbelt laws came into play, and or you're insisting your kids in a car seat. Well, you kids were never in a car seat and you didn't die. It's like you know, I don't know that that's good, good evidence to back up. Like just because somebody tried some home remedy on their goat or fed their goat this or that and it didn't die, doesn't mean that that's the right thing and it's going to work well for your goat. That's the problem with anecdotal advice like that. A couple last things that I want to hit on as far as what you would need to know. You meant we talked about the fencing. What about, like shelter in space? Like does a goat need X number of acres per goat? And then what about shelter? Do they need a barn? Do they need heat? Do they need bedding?

Deborah Niemann: 33:34

They definitely need a barn. This is one of the things I just love about goats. I didn't love it in the beginning. Nobody does. If they get wet, they think they're going to melt.

Deborah Niemann: 33:45

So we thought like, oh, we bought this horse farm and it's got this big, gorgeous horse barn. We thought that would be fine. You know, like horses, you let them out in the morning, you bring them into the barn at night. And the reality was that every time you had like three little tiny sprinkles of water, the goats were all out there screaming bloody murder, because they thought they were gonna melt and they're, like you know, climbing at the gate like, let us in, let us're going to melt. And so we learned very quickly that like, oh, okay, well, we need to have three-sided run-in pasture shelters so if it rains, the goats can just run in there and we don't have to go put them in the barn just to take them out 15 minutes later, you know when it stops raining. And so you definitely need shelter for your goats because also, they can wind up getting chilled and get hypothermia and get sick if it's cold and it rains on them.

Deborah Niemann: 34:39

Having a barn that you can close up might be really important in terms of predators, depending on where you live, you know. So it doesn't have to be. You know, if you've only got two or three goats, you can have a small three-sided shelter, depending on what your fencing situation is like and your predator situation. You might be able to need to close that up at night. You know, if you've got pasture shelters, that's fine. They might work most of the time, but there might still be times that you need to put them in a barn that can be closed for whatever reason.

Amy Castro: 35:10

What about breeds of goats? I mean breed does matter right.

Deborah Niemann: 35:15

If you're going to decide to move forward.

Amy Castro: 35:16

I mean, obviously, if you're going to do it for dairy purposes, then obviously you're going to investigate dairy breeds. But what about just a person that wants maybe two or three goats as pets, because they've got the space, they're willing to do the shelter, they're willing to do the upkeep? Which ones make good, just pets to have?

Deborah Niemann: 35:34

Those would be usually the smaller breeds, like the Nigerian dwarfs or pygmies. A lot of people use those interchangeably. So many people contact me and say, hey, do you have pygmies? And I'm like, if you're asking if I have small goats, yes, they're small, but pygmy is a specific breed and I have Nigerian dwarfs.

Deborah Niemann: 35:53

Pygmies, historically, were a meat goat. Nobody in the US is going to breed a little goat for meat, regardless of what its meat to bone ratio is. You know they want the big boars and kikos and stuff like that. Nigerian dwarfs are a dairy goat and once you know about the difference between dairy goats and meat goats, then you're like, oh, there's the big difference between their body type. And the other thing that most people don't know is that the Nigerian dwarfs are the ones with all the flashy colors. Pygmies actually have very strict color standards and they are not allowed to have blue eyes. So a lot of people are like, oh, I want spots and blue eyes and all this. Well, then you want a Nigerian dwarf and getting castrated males as pets works really great, because then it's not going to come into heat every three weeks like a doe, they're not going to pee on themselves like a buck. And if you just want pets, then that's all you need. Plus, they're not going to be hormonal, you know. So weathers really do make the best pets.

Amy Castro: 36:54

And what's your best advice as far as finding a good pet goat? What's your best advice as far as finding a good pet goat? Is there a National Goat Breeders Association that you would go to, or is it okay to get a goat from a rescue, because we have had them come through ours?

Deborah Niemann: 37:07

You want to make sure that you're getting your goats from somebody who's reputable either a reputable breeder or a reputable rescue. Do not go to Craigslist or Facebook or whatever and just buy from the first person that says I've got goats for sale. I don't know if you've talked about this before, but there are scammers out there, so there are people who wind up sending several hundred dollars to somebody that doesn't even have goats because they've created fake websites and Facebook pages and stuff like this.

Deborah Niemann: 37:37

But let's assume that you've moved past that and you actually get goats from somebody. So like big red flags would be somebody selling you intact males. There are some people who just want to get their male kids. Usually they're raising for dairy. They just want to get their male kids gone as soon as possible because they want 100% of the milk for the dairy, and so I don't know if people still use this. People would call them dripping wet, buckling sales. You know where. It's like $25 or $50.

Deborah Niemann: 38:09

You come and you get this baby buck that maybe it's had colostrum from its mom, maybe not, but let's say they did get colostrum, and now you take them home. Well, now you're going to be responsible for castrating them. It is not going to be cheap. You know. A vet is going to charge you, like they would charge you for spaying or neutering a dog or cat. Usually it's going to be expensive and if you don't want it to have horns which is another discussion, it can be very dangerous around small children Then you would have to pay a vet to do that. So that's going to be more money. Again, a reputable breeder would do that for you. The other thing is just talk to them and ask them questions. If they don't want to answer your questions, walk away. If somebody is going to sell you bottle babies, make sure they take a bottle.

Deborah Niemann: 39:04

Some of these people are just lazy and they leave the kid on mom until the day it gets picked up and then they take it away from mom and hand it to the person. And most people have heard of nipple confusion in human babies. Well, it's the same thing, but it's the opposite with the baby goats. They've been nursing on mom their whole life and they have no clue what to do with a bottle and they act like you're trying to poison them. They scream and they fight.

Deborah Niemann: 39:33

Some people will say, oh, they're three weeks old, they're eating, they don't need a bottle anymore. And then they call me when the kid is half dead. They need milk for at least two months and with the Nigerians they need to be at least 20 pounds. So it's just really sad. So you really have to educate yourself before you get the goat. And I tell people, if somebody tells you it's bottle fed, tell them oh, can we give it a bottle when I come to pick them up. And if that kid does not grab the nipple all by itself and start sucking. It's not a bottle baby. It's hard for me, as somebody who's been doing it for 23 years, when somebody has never, like they just became a goat owner today and they're contacting me like I've had these kids since yesterday and they still they've taken like maybe two or three ounces of milk.

Amy Castro: 40:31

Like it's really sad, yeah yeah, and it's very frustrating. I mean we run into that with the bottle baby kittens that we get in. You know, it's like there's a little bit of a technique to it. But yeah, they, you know they're some some take to it pretty quickly and others fight it and you end up having to tube feed them and doing all these other things just to just to keep them alive. And when you're inexperienced in knowing how to handle them, knowing the angle, knowing how to you know the little tricks that you learn because you've been doing it for 10 years of transitioning them, then it's super frustrating and you feel like a big old failure. It's not a position you want to be in, for sure. So yeah.

Amy Castro: 41:10

Deborah. So my last big question for you is why? Why do you do it? Why did you do it? Why have you been doing it for 20 years? And then I want you to tell us about the podcast and other resources that you might refer us to if we decide we actually do love goats and want to go down this path.

Deborah Niemann: 41:29

Yeah. So a lot of people ask me like when they see all of my stuff and they're like this sounds really complicated, why do you have goats? And the reality is because they are just the coolest animals ever. They really are. You know, they do tend to be more emotional than most animals. They've got quite the personality. Like every one of them is an individual and I was.

Deborah Niemann: 41:52

I originally was in love with the goat cheese and that was what got my husband involved. You know, originally it was me and the girls doing it and then, once they went off to college, I told my husband I'm like hey, if you still want goat cheese, you're going to have to learn how to do this. And so it was a really fast yes for him because he didn't want to lose the goat cheese. So that's a really big part of it there. So they're just terrific animals. Like most people are really surprised at how they just totally fall in love with them and like that was the thing.

Deborah Niemann: 42:22

You know, we never had a buck live past the age of three. For the first five years we had goats, oh wow. And our does were two thirds of our does were not getting pregnant. They weren't staying pregnant, they were miscarrying at all stages, and giving up just was not even an option for me, because I had just fallen in love with them so much. I was just like no, I got to figure out what's wrong, so we can take care of this. And yeah, by the time I figured out what I needed to do to keep my goats alive, I had enough information to write a 300 page book, which was how I suddenly became a goat expert in a lot of people's lives.

Amy Castro: 43:01

Yeah, because you teach classes on goat stuff at university, right?

Deborah Niemann: 43:05

Yeah, I teach for the University of Massachusetts, amherst online, and so I have had students all over the world who've taken that course. And then I also have the Goat Academy where I have online courses and our is GOATS 365, which includes access to the courses. And then we have meetings on Zoom three times a month where we all get together and people ask questions and they talk about like what's happening with their GOATS today.

Amy Castro: 43:32

So those classes in the groups, are they for beginners, like I guess I'm trying to decide, like, if I decided, okay, I do want to pursue this GOAT thing. I don't currently have any. Would you advise that I take one of the courses first Seems to make sense to me, and then it sounds like there's a group and follow on that I can stay in. Is that how that works? Yeah?

Deborah Niemann: 43:50

definitely. I mean, really the best thing is to join GOATS 365, because then you can start taking the courses Like you could start with like goat basics to learn all about the housing and the fencing, and then, as you're going through that course, you can also come to the meetings and say, okay, well, this is you know, and show us pictures Like this is what my barn looks like. What do you think of this? What do you? You know? Here's my pasture, this is the fencing.

Deborah Niemann: 44:17

No book and no course can tell you a hundred percent of everything you need to know to make it work on your farm with your goats and your land. And so that's the beauty of the membership is that people can come in there and they can share pictures. They can share video even and we've had people do that. You know, they're out in their barn. We actually have one member who joins every single meeting from his barn and a lot of people wind up saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars. You know, because, like they, just some people just assume like, oh, we need to have concrete floor in our barn. No, you don't, dirt floor is fine, yeah.

Amy Castro: 44:53

So, and then we'll put some links in the show notes for people to get to the 365. How is the podcast different? I mean, I know a podcast is a podcast and a class is a class, but because that's a lot to manage.

Deborah Niemann: 45:04

This is like beyond a full-time job. I have this stuff on my. Yeah, I worked 60 hours last week. I have software on my computer that tracks everything I do. It is more than a full-time job what I do and the podcast. I love doing the podcast so much. What it has been so we're celebrating our fifth anniversary this month. I'm so excited. What it has been up to this point is me interviewing a lot of vet professors and researchers about emerging research in the field of goats.

Deborah Niemann: 45:36

When I got started 23 years ago, people literally thought goats and sheep were almost the same. They thought their nutritional needs were the same. They thought that you treated them for parasites the same. I mean, it's just unreal. This is why my goats were dying and not getting pregnant.

Deborah Niemann: 45:54

We had so many problems 20 years ago because we didn't know and that's why I found the answers at that time by digging into the scientific journals. I was reading stuff like veterinary parasitology and things like that and finding the stuff that was brand new back then and, crazy enough, stuff that was discovered 15, 10 years ago. They still don't know it today. If a vet sees mostly dogs and cats and maybe a few horses, they're not going to do their continuing education on goats. So, even though, like we started out being totally for goat owners, I've heard more and more that we're getting a lot of vets listening and vet students because of the quality of our guests. Like we're getting down to the really nitty gritty here. I probably have 10 episodes on worms and goats. Don't get me started on that subject.

Deborah Niemann: 46:48

Yeah, we didn't even get started on that. Like worms, I mean, I tell people I have a. My parasite course is like seven or eight hours, I believe it, because it's like really detailed. There's just so much that people need to know and it's so much more complicated. So many of us and I know I was the same way Okay, we go to zoos and we see these animals in a small pen and we think that that's what we're going to do with our animals, right, we're going to put our goats in a small pen and it's all going to be good.

Deborah Niemann: 47:18

And the reality is, if you do that, you're forcing your goats to eat from their toilet and so you are going to have worm problems. And they actually do have a lot of worm problems in zoos because they keep them in these small pens. So controlling worms is not about drugs. It's all about management and pasture rotation or learning how to do a dry lot. So that's another thing, too, that you need to learn about. Ideally, if you can learn this stuff before you get goats, you will save yourself so much money, so much heartache. I love working with people who are new and goat shopping and planning everything out. That is the ideal. Goat shopping and planning everything out. That is the ideal. And when I work with people like that, they don't have problems, you know, because they avoid problems. They, you know. They get the right housing, the right fencing. They don't do the things wrong when it comes to worms. So all these problems are not inevitable. It doesn't have to be hard. It's like anything else. You just have to have the right information Right.

Amy Castro: 48:21

All of these things are things, and I think you made the key point there that I want to leave people with is they're fantastic animals, they're funny, they're charming, but they can be a lot of work and to give them their best lives requires a lot of forethought to be able to pull it off successfully. And so by taking courses, by doing your research whether it's listening to the podcast or joining the groups and really learning what you're getting yourself into before, because that was my mistake is that I thought, oh, because somebody had goats here before that I could just get my own goats and kind of do what that person did and, without necessarily knowing, did his goats die off on a regular basis? And the goats that I was seeing there were his fifth set of goats that he had, for all I know. And so I just I went into it dumb and I made a lot of mistakes, and it was to the detriment of the poor goats. We lost one to barber pole worms. We lost one to a cougar.

Amy Castro: 49:17

Now that who knew there was a cougar? I didn't, you know. I mean, I knew we had coyotes and we had coverage for that, but when you've got a cougar that jumps over your fence and literally takes an 80 pound young goat over into your neighbor's yard, you know. So then we had to build like this dog cage thing to to almost like a little prison to put them in at night to protect them. From that, I quickly realized that the goats were not for me. I wasn't prepared going into it, and then I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to create an environment where that was going to work with everything else I was doing in the rescue. So we rehomed the remaining goats to people who could manage that, but it's not something that I would wish on anybody else.

Amy Castro: 49:55

So hopefully you learned from our lessons here today and, debra, I really appreciate you being here. I know that you come to this game with a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge and I hope people who are still thinking in the back of their heads like I still want to do it that they check out those links. We're going to put the show notes, take your courses, listen to the podcast and do that well before they go goat shopping, if that is such a thing. But thank you so much for giving us your time and your expertise today. Yeah, thank you, it was a lot of fun.

Amy Castro: 50:28

All right, everybody. Thank you once again for listening to another episode of Muddy Paws and Hairballs. We will see you next week. Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs. Be sure to visit our website at muddypawsandhairballscom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. And hey, if you like this show, text someone right now and say I've got a podcast recommendation. You need to check the show out and tell them to listen and let you know what they think. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.