Goats are very active farm creatures. They love to wander around, eat, lounge around chewing their cud, or finding stuff to head butt. They can be mischievous, especially when they are kids. Regardless of how much land you have for them to roam, they can become bored, but even more so if they have to be confined to a pen. Bored goats are unhappy goats and unhappy goats, like most farm animals, are less productive. Our goats have approximately one acre to roam, but they still grow restless sometimes. To combat this boredom we came up with a few tips to help your goats keep occupied, and not all of them are purely for entertainment purposes.
Scratching Log
Goats love to scratch. They scratch their sides, they scratch their heads, they scratch their butts, and they will scratch their belly if they can find something to rub them on. Having a nice, rough log lying around in their pen will give them something to rub their sides and bellies on. One of our goats favorite things to do after we let her off the milking stand is to go straight to the log we keep in their pen and start rubbing her belly on it. She loves it!
Hay Feeder
We threw the goats hay out in a trough for a long time but what we found was that the goats would immediately jump up in the trough, step all over their hay with their dirty little goat hooves, poop on it, and then refuse to eat it. As you can imagine this was unhealthy for the goats, wasted a lot of expensive hay and alf alfa, leaving them nothing to browse on throughout the day. While there is nothing you can do to prevent goats from wasting hay our hay feeder that we designed and built has reduced the waste, keeps the hay up where the goats can’t trample it, and, by keeping more of the hay edible, gives them something to browse on throughout the day if they become tired of the plants, weeds, and grass around the yard. Another bonus to this feeder is that it can be out in the open and still keep their hay nice and dry in the rain.
Mineral Blocks
Goats, especially those that can not free range, have important mineral needs that vary from goat to goat and from day to day. Goats are very adept at knowing just what their bodies need in terms of minerals so having various types of mineral blocks available for them free-choice is not only great for keeping them occupied but also healthy. We have a mineral block (make sure that you check the labels to make sure that it is ok for goats, some are not), a sulfur block, and a salt block. Our goats are allowed to free range and with the wide variety their diet gives them they don’t feel the need to use the mineral blocks often but they do use them on occasion. Mineral blocks are cheap, can be found at the feed store, and, if kept out of the rain, will last a long time making this a cheap and easy decision.
A Strong Wall
As I mentioned before, goats love to scratch. We have found that our goats love to scratch their heads often as well as lightly head butt things. Our goats prefer to stand on their milk stands when we are not out there and just head butt their milk stands. You can often hear them from inside the house if you are at the back of the house where their pen is located. It can be comical to watch them just standing there head butting the stand over and over again. Sometimes they pick the side of the house as their head butting wall which is considerably louder and not as entertaining for those of us inside.
Tree Branches
Goats, similar to deer, are browsers. They like to munch on various weeds, bushes, trees, leaves, and occasionally grass. If your goats do not have access to trees, the next time you are trimming branches throw some in the goat pen. It is a wonderful treat for your goats and they will love you for it.
A Goat Playground
This may not be an option for everyone and I can certainly understand that, but if you have the room a goat playground is a great way to keep your goats entertained for hours on end. I found our particular goat playground when someone tore their child’s wooden swing set down and decided to dispose of it. Some of the swing set was in less than desirable condition but there was plenty of wood left to build my own goat playground. I used some of the swing set hardware along with some from my stash in my shop. The swing set was free so this project cost me nothing. I see wooden swing sets like this listed on local for sale/free websites and Craigslist from time to time so if you are patient and look hard enough you can likely score one for cheap or free like me. I set it up in the area where the goats are turned out during the day. They love to climb it and then challenge one another for the “king of the hill”. They charge up and down the ramp and will push each other off the ramp and the lower platform. They also love to climb to the top and lay out in the sun during the day.
As a bonus, if you have space constraints and you are raising both goats and chickens you can combine the two. Create a chicken coop that is sturdy enough to hold the goats and build them a ramp to climb up on the coop. With a little ingenuity you could create a wonderful space that goats and chickens alike would enjoy. A word of caution though, make sure that you do not put anything that goats can climb on too close to their fences as it will create an escape route for them. They will jump from high objects to clear a fence and get out.
Do you have any additional tips to entertain your goats or keep them healthy? We’d love to hear from you. Have a great day and God bless!
*I do not need goats-I do not need goats-I do not need goats* You are making me want goats! LOL Thanks so much in participating in the Homestead Blog Hop #3! 🙂
Baby goat pictures will do it every time, so if you are on the fence, avoid baby goat pictures! I saw a picture of one of my baby goats last night while I was thumbing through pics, now I want more goats. It’s kinda like chickens, you can never really have enough.
Goats are a disease. ….first you are exposed to a photo. Then you google them and you are in grave danger. But when you see your first youtube video you are seriously infected and there is not cure. We adopted our first pair of Nigerian dwarf kids in April and it is AMAZING! They are pure joy:)
This is so true. We love our goats (even though they can be a pain sometimes). 🙂
OMG….you are so right, I just love my two Nubians. I got them when they were just weaned from mama goat & bottle feeded, so they were so friendly. I built play things for them from free pallets to climb onto and jump off of, along with wood stumps and tires from our truck that needed new ones for climbing. They are now out in our 12 acre pasture with my 7 sheep, 2 horses, a jersey calf, ducks& geese at our pond and chickens that free range during the day. One big happy family. Because I will be breeding the goats I return them their own home at night. I love my life!!! Oh yeah…thank god for a wonderful husband!
Judi
Sounds like a wonderful set-up. 🙂
Goats need room to roam. I have barely enough room for chickens.
That’s very true. Keeping a goat penned up all the time can cause a lot of problems, including health problems, but no matter how large of an area you have for goats they will still look for things to entertain themselves. 🙂
I have 2 goats in a big pen with a feral pig. They were raised as babies together so the goats have some pig habits and I think Little Pig thinks she’s a goat. Your ideas are just great because they ave reached the stage where, while they still frolic and enjoy one another’s company, they do need more entertainment. Thanks!
Glad you found it helpful. Our goats tolerate our pig but they do not care to hand out with him. 🙂 Glad yours get along well.
I have2 goats,7 hens, 3 cats and a Great Pyrennes who stands watch over all!! I have e everything you mentioned except the log. One more thing I do is hang a cabbage just out of comfortable reach so they have to work to get a bite. I do this for my chickens too! They both work for hours on it.
That’s a great idea! I love that. I could actually hang it from their playground. Thanks for the idea and for taking the time to reply. 🙂
I am just now discovering goats! Loving them. I am starting with bottle babies until I can figure it all out. I am building a pen and do not have a fenced yard. Getting Nigerian dwarf, do you think fence is priority? Will they roam and leave or stay close to home like chickens? Our lab is acting as momma. Thanks!
Absolutely fencing is important. As you will find out, goats playful and curious nature make them natural escape artists. One of the biggest fencing problems I see with goat keepers is that they do not take into account that goats love to use the fence to lean against and scratch their sides on when they are trying to shed their winter coats. Over time this causes the fence to bulge out and it can cause the bottom to lift up so the goats will just roll under the fence. Keeping your goats in will help to keep them safe from predators and injuries. I know you will love your goats, we do. 🙂
I’m from NZ, and got my first 2 goats in January – one was 3 months and one was 5 months! I absolutely adore them!
I have a big playground for them – though i dont see them use it often, they still have their little faces pressed agains the fence watching the house! And if dare go outside without going to see them, i sure know about it! Mine dont have a huge paddock, but there are only 2 of them.. I let them out sometimes, but it is always such an effort getting them home! Do you think they’d ever wander far from their home? Do you think they naturally go back there when they want their hay, or when it gets dark?
Thanks!
Others might disagree but I would not let my goats roam. They are browsers like deer and so they can get very caught up in just wandering around and browsing. Predators could be a problem as well. You could get one of the screw type dog tie down anchors and tie them off with a long lead rope under supervision. That would allow them to browse and would allow you to use them for weed control. We use dog collars for large dogs to give us something to hook the lead ropes to when we are walking ours to and from the fenced pasture.
Great article. A goat play land, cool idea! Yeah, they love leaves, you are right about that.
I have a kids bouncy ball, the kind that real kids sit on and bounce on, hung up for my bucks and they love it. I’ve also used old tires, they love butting it and having someone swing it for them to butt too.
I love the cabbage idea, I’m going to try that one.
I also have a plastic child’s slide which the goat kids adore. I got it for free when someone’s child outgrew it. Also, my goats love plastic pools with no water in it of course, I think they like the sound of their feet when they jump in, plus they sleep in them . I don’t really get the attraction to it, but they love them. Usually, someone will donate a cracked one that won’t hold water anymore.
I love your ideas! Especially the kiddy pool. We use the small, cheap plastic pools for our pigs but over time they crack, as you mentioned. I currently have one that needs retiring right now. I think I will do the same. Thanks!
I am getting a goat in June could you tell me what I will need are what I will have to do to make her a little playground
Really anything that they can climb on is a great addition for a goat playground; wooden spools, small wood play sets, picnic tables, tires stood up and partially buried, the options are only limited by imagination so go crazy! Just make sure that you keep things at a reasonable height so that your goats don’t end up with broken legs from a fall.
Hi, I like your hay keeper/feeder idea. Could you give me measurements on it? Thanks!
I’m sorry. I don’t have any measurements handy. The only measurement that would truly be of significance would be the height. You want the height of the middle of the hay bale holding portion (for lack of any official term) to be the average height of your goats. So if the average height of your goat herds heads are 36″, you would want the height of the middle of the hay holding part to be at 36″. Hope that helps!
I’m getting my baby goat next weekend and I’m only getting one her name is Dixie and anyways how will I entertain her when I get her she would be weaned 2weeka ago???