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[sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>]

Lynn Wigglesworth wrote:

> It's 5 strand high tensile (I have sheep also, and 5-strand is 
> recommended), and it's the entire way around my 42 acres (well over a 
> mile of fencing). with 4 gates in it (bracing for gates in high 
> tensile is ghastly expensive). For many years, I had old, falling down 
> fences around a couple of pastures...I could only graze 10 of my 42 
> acres. I was forever chasing cows and propping up the fences. They 
> were so bad that I couldn't even keep them charged...I had to do this 
> or give up the animals. Now I have sub-divided pastures, some 
> streambank fencing, and a perimeter fence. It doesn't stop deer, 
> though...they sail right over it.
Boy, fencing to die for.  Good fencing, imho, (or lack of it) is enough 
to make or break a farm....I'd rather take a mortgage for needed fencing 
than for a house:  living in substandard quarters is a whale of a lot 
easier than living with bad fencing....you "did good", gal!

As to fences, goats, Bob....

Pretty much depend on the goat/s...if they are accustomed to fencing, 
well supplied with food and entertainment (beach balls, old wire reel, 
barrel, rocks/downed trees to clamber over, whatever) you've a good 
chance of keeping most goats in with 4'.

But if they are bored, or hungry, or have an enterprising ringleader, 
many goats can clear a 4' fence with ease.  I had a cashmere buck once 
who wasn't even slowed down by a 6-footer.  It only took one season to 
move him along.....They only have to see another one do it to get the 
idea that it's great fun, even if they don't want anything on the other 
side. 

So, generally speaking, I don't think it's too big a deal.  I'm fairly 
isolated here, and had a cashgora doe who, acquired as a yearling, 
absolutely wouldn't stay in anything:  not a fence, shed, barn, pen, no 
matter what, no matter the weather.  I let her get away with it for a 
week and it was all over.  She had an outstanding fleece, though, so she 
and I made a deal:  said I "You can stay out, and go wherever, but you 
eat my ornamentals and I'll get rid of you the next day."  Somehow, I 
swear to you, she 'got' it.  If she ever touched a hosta, I didn't catch 
it.  Certainly she never ate more than a nibble, or I'd have caught it 
for sure.

In the wintertime if the weather got really bad she'd stand right up 
alongside the west side of the house (dark in color so holds some heat 
late in the day, I suppose, and the snow doesn't drift in there too 
badly; they despise being in snow, and rain) and sometimes spent days 
there.  I really couldn't get in there (drifts between her and yard, and 
I didn't time have to strap on snowshoes twice a day feed goat) to feed 
her, so we'd drop a small pumpkin or squash and whatever else from a 
window above where she stood.  Fortunately, goats will eat snow for 
their fluid supple.  So she had free rein for 17 years, and that worked 
fine, but you wouldn't want more than one doing that......

When I had dairy goats (mostly Saanens, lot of folks look down their 
noses at them) they were less likely to test fences, whatever.  They 
also were more inclined to be of a 'flock' mentality than the fiber 
gals, for whatever the reason, except for fullblood Angoras, and they 
stuck pretty tight together.  If one couldn't go thru a fence or 
something, they all stayed back; if one doe's kid was threatened 
somehow, every one of the does was there, providing support.  
Interesting to watch.  I had a few Alpines over the years, and they were 
nice girls, not much given to high leaping, as were the LaManchas, and 
they both easier to milk than Saanens.  Worst jumper of all, also a 
serious climber, is African Pygmy, those things were everywhere, all the 
time, but smart and with a good sense of humor and we didn't much care.  
They were what Wade used to call goat candy---good for nothing, just a 
troublesome treat.

SJ