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  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: market-farming goats
  • Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 18:38:59 -0400


Premier's portable electrified net fences are worth their weight in gold. On campouts one of my pack wethers carries the fence and charger; I don't use a tether line even then. I do not leave goats unattended in the portable net fence -- they can get tangled in it if they decide to act capricious. If I'm putting a few out to mow the lawn, I stay within earshot.

I keep two 150-foot net fences. I use them for sheep, goats, and pigs -- as much to keep stray dogs out as to keep the livestock in. My ducks have figured it out and they can usually be found hunting for bugs inside of the fence but they just walk between the wires. Drives the goats nuts.

I have refused more than once to sell goats to people who admitted that they planned to tether it. Like most semi-professional and experienced goat breeders, I consider it a form of abuse.

As a goat owner, breeder, and rescuer it is my own humble and completely unsolicited opinion that anybody who can't afford proper fencing can't afford to keep goats (or any other animal) in the first place. And it is pretty much true that if a fence isn't watertight it ain't goat-tight either -- it takes some money and effort to build and maintain proper fencing. I do not use the Premier fences as my primary fence, and at $400 for the two of them and one charger they're the cheapest fence I've got.

I'm re-doing lots of fence this year, replacing woven wire with no-climb horse fence with an electric scare wire at the top. And 16" steel spikes holding the wire to the ground. It's spooky to see a 200-pound goat balancing on the top of a waving, weaving, swaying fence and even spookier to see him crawling on his belly through the two-inch gap he managed to stretch out over the course of a bored afternoon.

I have seen goats and ponies starving to death thanks to fools who thought that if they had a metal stake or a tree in the back yard they had proper facilities to keep an animal. I have attempted to save animals that have been so mistreated, one whose baby collar had grown into its neck and had to be surgically dug out of the flesh. We did finally lose her but not for lack of trying. The owners cried and cried. They were tremendously nice people. That was the case that finally got through to me that there is just no thing as overestimating people's ability to be stupid.

Ignorance is no excuse, people. Don't get animals unless prepared to do some homework first, and to care for them properly and safely. And don't quietly and politely allow other people to get away with mistreatment. Those of us who travel behind cleaning up the messes left by the cruel, lazy, and well-meaning ignorant are not likely to be quiet and polite and we could use some company.

My rant for the day.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living
Earth, People, and Animal-Friendly Agriculture
Goat, Sheep, Pony, and Horse Rescue

http://www.ic.org/agrove

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  • Re: market-farming goats, Dori Green, 04/22/2001

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