Tell me more about Fainting Goats

[Performancemini]

I keep reading about some of you having Fainting Goats.They fascinate me (what little I know). Would love to have a pair for pets. What is the best pet-does or "geldings" (what are they called?). I know I should get on a website and read up on them-but everyone here has such neat personal experience.

What types of fencing and shelter are best. Pros/cons???

 

[shorthorsemom]

I LOVE my fainting goats. I have three. They are gentle and sweet and don't challenge my fences and I am in love with the breed. Mine have horns, there are folks that don't like horns on goats. I am not one of those.

I use the same fencing as my horses and have nice gates with wire on them to the bottom too. All the way to the ground on all my fencing, mostly so I can sleep at night and not have anything get in there with them to hurt them.

Mine are easy to do a hoof trim on, just use a set of rose stem trimmers and I they get so still (stiff) when I grab a foot and it is easy to do the trimming.

I have all girls. I am currently being talked out of having a buck here at my place.. and after viewing photos of them peeing on their faces and front legs, I am understanding the wisdom of not housing a buck here and if I do breed I will probably find my girls a boyfriend elsewhere.

I find the girls very sweet and mine are gentle all the time. Good with kids too. They love eating dried pasta and elbows and tri colored rotini and they sound like they are chewing rocks. They love animal crackers too. I feed a purina goat chow and hay and I have places where they can munch sticker bushes and poison ivy and all that fun stuff goats love. They don't graze like horses. They love branches off of my maple tree.

I will probably think of other things to write. I have three fainters and a retired breeder Nigerian dwarf goat that I love too.

I will attach a couple of photos.. mine are plainer in color, they can come in amazing colors just like horses too.







I just saw a special about a lady in Lancaster pa that has fainting goats. She has the most amazing colors in her herd. Goat flower farm. You can probably view the special they did on her farm on line.

 

[shorthorsemom]

Adding more information. I use calf huts for shelters. They work fine. I also added a smallish children's plastic playhouse in the field for an additional shelter and I can't help but chuckle when I see all the goats have crammed themselves in the play hut and have opened the little plastic window shutters to look out and one goat or two are lounging on the playhouse sink and stove inside or looking out the windows.

My goats and horses do not mix. My horses do not like the goats in their faces and the one time my goats got into my horse field they were chased.

Some folks think the fainters are more "boring", but I find them more "dog like". They follow me everywhere when I am in their field, and they talk to me and as soon as they hear my voice outside they talk to me. They don't climb much, but enjoy lounging up off the ground, but not overly high. I have flat top (no holes) plastic pallets for them to lay on that somebody gave me. They enjoy their water warm.

No cons so far for me and the goats. I never have time to weed-wack and they think that is wonderful and they enjoy eating the weird stuff that grows up into my fence. I do feed hay all winter and smaller amounts all summer more as a treat. I break branches off of my maple tree and they love that.

Here are some more photos...





I have the goat hut, but around the small play house I added an additional small fence. If I need to do hoof trims or worming or anything where I need to capture them I feed them inside the smaller enclosure and then close the gate. Easier to catch them that way. It also gives me a fenced in area within the fence in case (like a corral) and if I need to mow or open the gate full width for any reason they can be safely contained. These two photos were taken a few seconds apart. They were all resting but as soon as they saw me they got up and came to me. They love their humans.

Starting a mower or weed wacker or a 4 wheeler makes them faint. If they are happy to see me and run to me they look like they are running in quick sand and they get stiff. If I warn them I am going to make noise I notice they sometimes lean on the fence or go into the hut and they can stay calm and not faint.

In reality the fainting is actually a stiffening, and only lasts about 10-15 seconds. They are totally aware of everything, they don't really faint, they just stiffen and keel over or brace themselves.

best wishes.

 

[jacks'thunder]

Love the info shorthorsemom! I soooooo want a fainter! But for now it can not be, they are way to expensive here

But I'll keep looking! One day I WILL get a few!!!

 

[shorthorsemom]

My guy charges $75 for his babies... male or female. too bad you don't live around here. I am in it just for the pet fun hugs and sticker and poison ivy control and fenceline weeding. My guys daughter does 4H and she is showing her goats.

 

[jacks'thunder]

Agreed! LOL! Although I'm not 100% where you are! LOL! Goaties are fun pets that's for sure!

 

[atotton]

I love them. I don't own any but would like to get a couple to add to my farm. My friend has them and they are fantastic pets.

 

[Performancemini]

I like that it sounds like they are not prone to being "Houdinis". My husband's biggest concern is that it seems , from ehat we have heard, is that the are escape artists. I like the pictures showing you shelters/playthings and fencing. I can give him a visual then. Prices around here fluctuate just a little, but the average rate seems to be $200-350. One place occasionally has pets for $75-100.

 

[shorthorsemom]

My main shelter is the calf hut and it has windows you can open and close. They do enjoy that odd play house too for some reason on the bright sunny days, but in winter with snow blowing they all 4 get in the bigger and better protection calf hut. They don't challenge my fences and they really don't like to be high up or climb because they don't like to fall off high places if they have a "faint". Once they trust their human they gain confidence and can actually avoid the faint. Mine get excited and look like they are walking in quick sand.. but if a loud startling noise happens they can all three go over like trees. I also noticed that even though mine have horns, they don't use them against each other , but rather enjoy scratching their own backs with their horns.

My friend has boer goats and they are escape artists. My Nigerian dwarf goat is hard on my fence line and will roll under the gate and try to get out and once she got into where the horses are and that's how I discovered my horses hate goats...but.... she is a princess in a goat suit and I love her very much.

My fainters are quite content in their yard and they love low platform stuff to lay on. They love the jane fonda exercise step I never use any more and my old two step horse mounting block to lay on. I would say that they are very easy to work with and easy to care for and even with my busy schedule I enjoy just going out to my goat pen and hanging out with them.

Found a photo of my bigger hut...

 

[Performancemini]

What kind of hay do they need? Do you just use straw to bed the calf hut in winter or do you use somewhere else? This winter seems like the calf hut would have been difficult? Can you train them to lead-so you can move them around? I am a little leery of the horns in case a child got knocked with them, especially the pointed ends.

 

[shorthorsemom]

My dehorned Nigerian dwarf goat is the one I use for kid visits. Yep those horns are pointy. You have to dehorn them so early, mine were missed by my guy I get mine from. A breeder I know does dehorn all her kids and all hers are dehorned she sells. Depends on what you want. My kids are older, if I were getting one for little kids I would definitely do dehorning.. If you don't get them done early by maybe 3 weeks old it can cause problems like scurs from what I understand.

I feed any kind of hay. I noticed they like the stemmy stuff and stuff with leaves from edge of field hay raking. I use my hay I reject and don't want to feed my horses and I also feed grass hay we buy for our heifers. I use straw in my huts. I bed it deep and I probably only used one bale every two weeks all winter and it doesn't stink and seems fine and I go inside the huts myself to check out how the shelter is doing and I have always found it decent enough to sit in myself. One of my spring chores is to clean out my huts now that it is above freezing. I have heard folks recommend not feeding alfalfa to goats, but not sure why. I have only had goats for a couple of years now and I don't breed, so maybe experienced goat breeders will chime in.

Calf hut worked great all winter. Stayed dry and warm. The calf huts have an offset door so no matter what the wind direction they can find somewhere to get shelter.

Goats are made of sugar and hate to get wet so sometimes if we had a storm you wouldn't see a single foot print in the snow anywhere. I did shovel paths for them so they would come out of the huts. On a rainy day they don't even look out the door. haha. I put the hay inside the hut when it rains.

It was a brutal winter here and my goats look great going into spring. During those cold months I fed each goat 2 cups of goat chow split into two servings daily plus quite a bit of hay since they couldn't browse for eating.

Goats are browsers not grazers. If they are eating the grass down they are probably needing something added.
You can teach them to walk nicely on a lead. Mine don't lead so well, but when I go to the county fair I see goats being led quite nicely. My Nigerian leads decently, pulls a little but not too bad.