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  • From: sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] was You think they won't taxyourhomestead, now fencing/goats
  • Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:23:09 -0500

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




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