Containing Goats

We have acquired four pygmy goats. For the second time this week we got a phone call telling us the goats were in someone's garden and had to go out and catch them. Not easy.

These goats can scale five foot fences! How to contain them?

Tethers/a chain???

Isn't it dangerous to tether them when they are left. They may get caught up in it?

Do you have a holding number? You need one for goats. As regards containment - yes you do need high fences, proper agricultural fencing not the sort of thing you would want in a garden!

Pygmy Goat Club

Think the fencing needs to be agricultural rather than domestic

Yes, we do have a holding number. The paddock is fenced with stock fencing and a strand of barbed wire above that. They escaped that so we added two strands of wire above that but it is not electrified as yet. They just pulled the wire down and jumped through the gap between the two strands!

I am going to put collars on them tomorrow as they are in the shed overnight and at least they can come out for walkies tomorrow.

When we looked into keeping goats, all I read was how good at escaping they were, which put me off a bit!

Would love to see photos of them as I do still really like them. I just don't think they are practical for us at the moment.

Helen

I'd suggest (if you can)... two rows of stock fence, one above the other, with cable ties to tie the edges together (like deer fencing)... if they are able to do stock fence and 2 rows of barbed wire, you're going to need somehting over 5ft....

I was on holiday recently and saw 3 pygmy goats tethered to their kennels. That seemed to work OK. They were moved in the day time to a fresh grazing and returned to the kennel area at night.

I suppose they could if they are in an area where there are trees etc? I have only known a couple of people keep goats (and singular ones at that) and they have always tethered them out in fields without trees etc without any problems.

As they are such escape artists you might have to think about making your fences even higher?