Top 10 reasons people quit raising goats?
 

I'm working on a book for new goat owners to help them avoid the mistakes most of us made when we first got into goats. The reason we are here is that we made those mistakes, learned from our mistakes, and then moved on, but we all know someone who has quit raising goats for one reason or another. I want to hear from you what you think are the top ten things that make people throw in the towel. Some things can't be helped, but I want to address the major issues that can be prevented.

Some things I have heard:

10. Neighbors complained
9. Moving
8. Too old to care for them
7. Feed costs went up
6. Neighborhood dogs killed goats
5. Too much work
4. More expensive than expected
3. Burn out from too many goats too soon
2. Can't keep goats in the pasture
1. Most of the goats died

I had a set of sisters returned because the lady's spouse didn't like them.

Of course it baffles me that she chose her husband. How the hooey can you not like baby goats???? This would be a GIANT red flag for me. (There are many reasons I am not married. LOL)

That goat was wayyyyyy cuter and more friendly than the chump she was married to!

You might find this article interesting:

http://www.dairygoatinfo.com/f20/why...y-goats-24603/

One of the things I hear is that the "learning curve is too steep." There are many mistakes that are easy to make, and for people who have fallen into goat ownership accidentally, suddenly, or on purpose without doing research, the mistakes are overwhelming.

I think part of the reason is because most new goat people are new to livestock period. They have a dog, cat, and a few chickens and goats are the first "real" livestock project. So the learning curve truly is steep. Keeping livestock is a big undertaking. Some make it, many don't. Research is of course one way to cut down on the amount of people that quit goats but honestly I think sometimes people just have to find out for themselves whether or not they like keeping goats. That is why I always ask buyers to call me first if they decide they don't want them and I will help place the animals.

The learning curve seems to be to much for a lot of people.

I was going to say the same about goats being the first livestock people get.

I think there are two main reasons people get out of goats (this is for dairy goats, I have not owned meat goats):
1. They are very labor intensive.
2. People get goats thinking they are going to "get rich quick", but then find out that they most certainly are not!

Oh, also goats are such personable animals that it is terribly heart-breaking to lose one. I've only had a couple of goats die, but I have heard over and over of people who just want to give up when they have one die. It is a very sad thing indeed.

I also think because of the personable nature of goats, that people have a hard time treating them with a "business-like" manner, so they hold on to goats that really should be culls because they are friends with them. :)

They are like kids (human kids). They're so cute when they're babies and then go through that gocky stage as teenagers and go through adult tempermental stages as well. They have good days and bad days just like us. When we and they have a bad day on the same day, they often have to go!

I had to let my goats go because of my husband..
BUT... it was for a good reason.
The sound they made was too close to human and every bleat triggered his 'daddy alarm' and he got an adrenaline jolt.
He kept thinking that his back brain would adjust, but after 6 months or so it was still filling him with the panic adrenaline every few minutes that he was outside.
We were afraid that he would eventually stroke out or something.

Poor guy.

I have heard from several former goat owners that the sounds they make were really terrible.
Either they or their spouse or a neighbor just couldnt abide it.

Makes sense to me.

Couple that with being unable to cull unproductive animals because they are 'friends'
and you have a recipe for hurt feelings and no more goats.

Plus, they DO die. Then you are heartbroken. Yep.

I just tell everyone that CeCe LIES.
She really isn't starving to death, despite what she says. :teehee:
Thankfully she makes delightful fiber and is pretty small which saves her being culled.

Honestly, she is insane. I mean look (from today)

Maybe you just needed a different breed? Was it Nubians? Some breeds make different sounds than others, and maybe one would be more tolerable to him.

I see a lot of folks getting into goats thinking it is comparable in cost or cheaper than store-bought cow's milk. Then when they account the work, money, and time involved, they go back to store milk.

For us, goats are a hobby (more mine, but DH likes them too). I also realize that comparing milk from my goats to milk from the store, is like comparing a lovely home-grown ham to a can of Spam. Even still, keeping our emergency kit stocked and up to date and making sure they are cared for the best way possible does add up. Fine by me, because I figure I'm still saving money. Goats are cheaper than a therapist. :grin:

...well I hate the way they all of a sudden change sexes from being a pregnant female to being an altured male when being inspected by a small animal Vet. I think that really blows...

I don't like how they plot to destroy my 20 year old "aged to perfection" rusty patina colored fencing. (and when you replace said fencing, they now jump it)

I also don't like how they outwit you at feeding time, and eat your clothes while inspecting things in the pasture...

You invest years and lots of cash into achieving 'the perfect goat' (atleast in your eyes) and it dies before anyone else can see your accomplishment of your dream

I have two goats that my girlfriend got and, frankly, I cannot stand them. They are impossible to contain, crap EVERYWHERE (especially in front of our door), destroy everything, raid the grain stores, contribute NOTHING, and are always in the way.

They are expensive but all hobbies are. Boating, target shooting, golf all are expensive you just weigh the pleasure against the expense. If something happens to your bass boat you just find another boat(usually more expensive than the last) or you just have to have an upgrade in golf clubs etc.. Same with goats if you like them enough the time and money are worth it.

I have been on the brink of quitting a couple of times because things happened that cost a life or nearly did that I had no idea about before the incident happened. The learning curve can be steep... and I did so much reading and research before actually getting a goat. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy... or reality.

LOL Gone-a-milkin....!!! CeCe does look insane! hahahahaha! :)

I have heard personally from more than one person that they sold their goats because the existing fencing they had for horses or cows, wasn't working and they couldn't afford to replace it all with new fencing. This included electric rope and wire, and older woven wire.

This year I will be selling out my meat herd completely, because of the draught and cost of feed. Most "stocking rates" are calculated for summer browse alone, and do not mention that the animals must be either supplemented, if not completely fed hay through the winter. I wan't my pasture to be self sufficient year round as much as possible. Horses and cows can make it through the winter on cool weather grasses, but there just isn't enough for goats unless you have a much, much lower stocking rate. Not enough books make that distinction.

Let us know when you go to print, I'm always looking for another good goat book!

The number one reason to give up goats is that you discovered SHEEP which are 100x better in every way.

1. They respect almost any fence

2. They don't destroy things

3. They mind their own business

4. They live on GRASS which is free

5. They give wool in addition to milk and meat.

6. They are quieter

I could go on, but isn't that enough....??

Losing stock probably is a biggy. The drought has probably taken people by surprise and a lot of livestock have been let go because of the high feed/hay prices.

I also think that people start reading and then compare how they raise their goats to how other people are raising theirs. Then they get all hyper and think they should be doing more. Doing more usually means costing more. They get overwhelmed (which is easy to do) and give up.

I have found that many want them to be "pets"and want to test then that way and in their efforts to spoil them actually cause themselves more heartache, either with over feeding issues or the unruly beat they create. They are livestock and need to be treated that way, they just have the advantage of being cute and personable. Mine have pet qualities and I certainly have my favorites but the end at of the day they are livestock.

I have also found many who underestimate the time, labor and money it takes to raise healthy animals. You can't just stick them out behind the barn and forget about them and expect them to thrive.

Cost of doing it the right way,
the sever exhaustion of kidding season and milking
those are probably my two biggest reasons why I ask myself why am I doing this from time to time and I have thought about throwing in the towel more than once.
The love of watching my children grown healthy and strong, kids turning into productive adults and the thrill of showing is what keeps me in the cycle.

We started with the two guinea fowl that came with the house. Then I wanted chickens for the eggs (DW agreed), then we came into a pair of heritage turkeys for free, then convinced ourselves that we needed some goats to help trim the underbrush around the place.
All this in a year and a half. At least I grew up in a more rural setting, and in a family that had farmers. Still, each addition brought surprises as to how much more work, time, money more than expected it all took.

But we both feel that keeping the animals, including the goats, is more than worth it for what we do get out of them, not the least of which is the mental therapy that we desparately need because of our day jobs.

We have two older housecats, so we were already used to feeding, doctoring, and otherwise caring for animals that provided little, if anything, of value. :hair Plus goat poo and munching the rosebushes are no worse than scratched-up furniture and stepping on a cold & squishy hairball or pile of cat barf just outside the bedroom door in the morning. :mad:

Here's my reasons:
They are too ---- smart. Butter knows how to open the gate to our deck and let everyone on the deck to play including Spice who jumps on our table and chairs.
They ate through my garage door! There is now a tiny pice of paneling holding them out of the garage where the feed is stored.
They break through fences if at all possible.
They ate my roses, blueberries, raspberries and apples!
They jumped on the hood of my car
They ate a tarp
They ate our cable to our TV
They look cute so you can't be mad at them
They are expensive
Last but not least they know what time it is so you had better not be late with their dinner.

But I'm an addict and we don't give up easily

I agree with a lot of others here. I think losing an goat and then trying to learn why leave people feeling overwhelmed. There is a lot to learn about livestock to keep them healthy. A lot people struggle with giving shots, trimming feet, rearranging babies during birth, discovering that FF actually have to be trained to the stand. I think that FF gets a lot of people. They have this rosy, glowing image of birds singing, the morning sun bright, and a sweet does standing patiently at the gate to waiting to be milked. Goats who stand completely still while the person blissfully milks her out.

What they get is pouring rain, cold wind, goats who have broken out of the fence and are eating all of their prized roses. And despite the fact they were perfectly happy to stand in the rain eating the roses, once the person has hold of them the goats are suddenly made of sugar and practically kill their handler in their rush to get back to the barn and avoid any puddles along the way. And then the person gets wet, muddy hooves stomping into the milk bucket, a goat alternating between leaping and laying and down on the stand and all of the milk completely ruined. And the struggle to bottle feed babies who sometimes seem to forget they have ever seen a bottle in their lives between one feeding and the next.

I also think people underestimate the amount of time it takes to care for a dairy animal. They suddenly realize that unless you have someone willing to stay behind and do all the work or a neighbor you can really trust to care for your goats, there are no over night camping trips or week long vacations because you have to be home to milk. This is too much for a lot of people so they get out of goats.

Between the learning curve, the cost, the training them to be milk goats, the time and the frustration of getting through the first couple of seasons, it is too much and people sell off and write goats off as way too hard to manage, too time consuming, and too expensive.

I loved my goats! I still wish I didn't have to sell them all, but dairy is a BIG time commitment (I know this after managing a cow dairy and running my own micro goat dairy at the same time). And managing your own dairy, no matter how small, is nearly impossible when you're also trying to hold down a full time job. So that's why I got out. I didn't want to do it if I was going to have to cut corners and not "do it right"

But someday I will have dairy goats again. I do miss their quirky personalities and making my own cheese and always having fresh raw milk in the fridge.

:viking:Livestock?:shocked:

My goats don't know that word. I'm not going to tell them.:spinsmiley:

ooooOOOOOoooooo that's some pretty yarn she's got! I'd keep her too.

Hey, now! Watch it!

No disparaging Nubians. Lots of breeds can be loud, and all those Noisy Nubians stories are blown WAY out of proportion.

Well, most of them.

~smiles~ First, gone-a-milkin, that looks like one crazy goat! LOL

In answer to the Op, I think the reason people get OUT of goats is ignorance going INTO goats. Most *especially* dairy goats.

And for many people, it isn't that they didn't TRY. They may have gotten a local mentor, they may have read up on the internet, but honestly, ALL livestock has a learning curve. People get into goats most often for dairy because they are not as large as cows and there is a much smaller initial investment, but really, they would have done just as poorly with a cow.

On another (exceptionally non-goat-related) forum, we were discussing whether or not an individual with proper training in critical thinking skills and above average intelligence could, basically, pick up just about any skill easily. I was one of the people that said ALL skills require time and practice, and used goats as an example. One person wished to argue, so I gave a test.

I gave all of the symptoms of mid-level selenium deficiency *except for* FKS (the hypothetical doe was still pregnant) and told the person, "There. You have the internet available to you. Go find out what is wrong with this animal and give me a cure or treatment plan.

Well, he, of course, did not. But a couple of other members thought it would be a cool challenge. One of them finally came back with, "Okay, I am DYING of curiousity, and I have traversed the internet, but I can't find anything that really matches! If it were a young goat, MAYBE it could be WMD? But you said she was pregnant. So PLEASE tell me what is wrong with this pretend goat!"

I explained what it was and how to treat it, and I think I might have generated some interest in goat keeping over there. But still.

It's a common deficiency in goats. Several people who know how to milk the internet of information, and who are of above average intelligence, could not discover the answer for themselves.

Keeping livestock of any kind is not intuitive. Nor is there easily available information on it. Google "Drooping Bonsai Tree" and you will get 1,000 sites that will tell you the reason a bonsai tree might droop, and how to fix it.

Google any number of livestock problems and you will only get a few places that address them. Google "lameness in goat" and it will send you here, DGI, or Goatworld...and the rest will be nonsense sites mixed with a couple of studies.

And then, the misinformation still rampant out there. Look for threads (other than on here) on disease, or any number of problems a goat can have, and 90% of them will come up with the conclusion of "Don't worry about it". As WE know, "Don't worry about it" kills goats...but that is the advice a LOT of people are getting out on the web.

So, ignorance, and the lack of easily obtainable information to cure that ignorance is, I believe, the biggest reason people throw in the towel.

Here in the southwest, it's been 3 years of drought,and extreme temps. My stocking rate (40 goats,a horse ) should be good for 160 acres, but with everything looking like the beach, it's not.For 2 years, we've fed hay almost year around. I'm not a quitter, but it's getting rough.

That's Caliann, always trying to get more addicts - er, RECRUITS - to Goat World. <G>

We stopped raising goats and sold our milk cow a few years back, thinking we wanted to travel. Nope, we didn't travel at all and missed the goats so much that we jumped right back into it. Of course this time of year with the snow and cold, milking does and kidding them out, we sometimes wonder why we didn't stick with the traveling thing.... :)

Thanks for the great input so far! This is awesome. Keep it coming!

There is a book called Goatkeeping 101.

It's essentially a collection of articles by the Vandergriffs who own Caprine Supply.

It has a chaper called "Good News, Bad News, about goat ownership" Which goes over the fact that the average person stays in goats for 3 years and why. I even copy that part and often give it to people. You might want to read that.

Here are reasons I know.

#1 reason is milking and chores.

#2 reason is you can buy milk and cheese cheaper than you can produce it yourself.

#3 is you have to be as good at selling or eating goats as you are at raising them or you will quickly become overwhelmed.

#4 People go and get goats without reading any books or in any way reading up on them. Then they get on the internet every time they have a problems and get all these people telling them to do all these different things. Going to the internet can be good, but it should not substitute for a fund of knowledge that you build up yourself from actually reading books and caring for animals.

#5 As a rationale for having more animals than they need they decide to start a dairy or start selling milk and end up losing even more money.

#6 They get into goats but don't even have a pickup truck to go get hay or haul animals.

I don't want to even think about how much our raw milk costs us! But at least we know it's clean and the goats aren't eating any GMO laden grain or hay.

Besides, what would we do with all that extra money if we didn't have dairy goats?! :shocked:

Who needs a pickup truck? My minivan has hauled everything. LOL

This in not going to be a popular answer, but what almost got me out of goats was lack of knowledge, in spite of LOTS of research, combined with the attitudes of a lot of people online. I experienced a lot of it and still see it over and over again. People will post with a question. If they don't know to provide what we all see as the 'basics' they get slammed. Then it comes out the are not managing their goats 'right', or worse, the goats have HORNS. The whole thread turns into a 'you're too stupid to own goats' tirade. They will never again feel able to ask for help, their goats will all die and they will have most definitely soured on the experience. BTDT.

This is NOT meant to accuse or threaten or anything to anybody here, but I have seen and experienced it and it is more prevalent than we would like to think.