yesturday while doing some training at work i got a phonecall to say that my lovely neighbour at work had phoned environmental health on us because they said our goats were causing rats.
i was so angry at this and had to stop training as it wasnt fair on the poor dog.
our goats are in my back garden in a pen, and i have had goats in my garden for 5 years, they have never been happy about it, the best part is they know i am moving to a bigger pen at the end of my garden which is 36ftx36ft (the new pen that is) and the goats arent the cause of the rats.
so the inspector came out rather convientley while no one was home to sortthe problem out, the neighbours then told us that we need to bait our garden, we have kids dogs cats birdss and the goats so obviously we arent happy about it. we phoned environental health this morning to find out exactly what was saud and we were told the goats aint the cause and the inspector only came out because she loves goats, that was the best news ever.
the rat in question that was seen was left on the path by one of our cats, our neighbours were told it was a present from th cat and they were lucky that the cat had killed it before leaving it for them
hows that for backfiring?
tanya

not really to do with the topic....but you have your goats in PENS??? Do they not go out foraging?

they in a purpose built pen to keep the dogs away from them,the present one is too small so i am in the process of building a new one for them

but how do they go out browsing? You cant lock them up.......goats are meant to wander about browsing & foraging. :( You meant they aren allowed access to grazing anywhere & are just kept in a pen???
(Also curious as to why you need to keep your dogs away from them)

my goats are kept in a pen for their own safety, if i didnt keep the dogs away i would probably be up the vets most days having a gore wound stitched up, my goats do have grazing in their pen as it isnt a concrete one, also do you realise just how many common weeds are poisonous, do you realise that goats can be destructive, and how many people would be willing to mistreat them if they were lose, i have already lost one goat that was allowed to roam, and another that was poisoned.
do you keep your dogs in kennels? or restrict their access in any way?
i dont care if you critise me just find a little more out about goats first.
also have you seen goat pens on most farms?
they are over crowded, concrete pens or mud pits, people feed them paper bags and allsorts, as goats cant be sick the same with horses, paper bags plastic begs etc get twisted around the gut and kill the goat, they are surprisingly delicate creatures, the myth about them eating everything is just that they are nosy animals, they have no hands so feel things with their mouths, their philospy is if it tastes good eat it, if unsure about the taste try a little if it taste bad spit it back at the person that gave it to you.
tanya

excuse me but I kept goats for over 20 years thank you very much!!! We bred some wonderful guernseys and anglo nubians and used to show them successfully, make cottge cheese, hard cheese and soft cheese. Our goats had a shed about 16 feet long with 3 loose boxes for cold wet nights, and then access to about 3 acres (5 goats usually) for browsing. They had ad lib foraging/browsing/grazing unless really wet and cold, then they were brought into their loose boxes and fed hay. I would never have dreamt of keeping them in a pen, it sounds horrific. They used to love their free grazing, and the fields were well fenced. A couple of the chaps had horns but my dogs knew that you kept away from the boys and I never once had a dog injured....although we did once have a goat get injured by another ones horn. after that all the non showing stock was de-horned! Well I am sorry but i do not agree with your method of keeping an animal that naturally browses & forages. As for your comment about keeping my dogs shut in kennel....what are you on about, of course I dont. They have access to an acre of WELL/SECURELY FENCED garden. As for allowing your goat lo get lost through roaming...have you never heard of fencing then?

dear me this is getting a bit heated!
I've seen goats kept in much smaller pens than 36 by 36 feet i'm sure tanya's are well looked after.
Tanya i'd have marched straight round to my neighbours house and told her where to stick the rat!! lol - see my post on nosy neighbour on idle chat board :D
As for the comment about dogs not being kennelled or confined, but allowed to roam over however many acres.... well you better get the rspca on to most of us who only have back gardens of about 20x20 feet :o
Lynz

no worries there - they wouldn't bother to come out!!

lynn...please re read my post. i said my dogs have access to a 1 acre garden that is securely fenced. I did not say they were unconfined and allowed to roam. There is a significant difference.

lol julia so true :D

sam you were stating that no, you do not confine your dogs (you were asked if you kept them confined in any way - you took the bait and said no they wander over an acre of well fenced garden - as someone pointed out, this is just a big pen!)
my point was that your post inferred that the fact your dogs have so much space makes your way superior to anyone else's. whether that's what you wrote or not - it was implied. if it comes down to it maybe it's not natural to keep a dog then? as they would in the wild roam in packs? How cruel we all are then, to confine one dog to an acre, or 20 square feet, or whatever we happen to have. Balderdash :o
Has anyone asked how many (DOMESTICATED not wild) goats we're talking about here? surely if it's only two or three a 36x36 pen is pretty big. anyway whatever, it's really not up to you to dictate what's right or wrong no matter how much an experrt you deem yourself. it is plain that no-one is cruel to the goats, they are fed and looked after, so concentrate your lectures on something more important. or maybe i'll put you in touch with my neighbour you can compare notes!
No offence intended you must accept criticism if you're going to dish it.
Lynz

linz,
everyone has to draw the line somewhere...cows in fields, horses in paddocks....they are all confined in some way or another...the question is simply whether the area of confinement allows the animal to have freedom to behave in a natural way & I think I know enough about livestock to know what is a suitable size for a good as near natural as possible quality of life. no doubt my mob would love to have free access over 600 acres without fencing and live a more natural lifestyle,...but thats just being plain pedantic now isnt it. please note battery hens are "fed & looked after" (as you quote) but most people think their cages are too small!!

er yeah...
by the way
please don't criticise my ability to read i hardly think i'd be 2 thirds of the way through an english degree if i couldnt read. or spell for that matter:
it's LYNZ with a Y
you started being pedantic no-one else. If you really think the goats in question are being mal-treated please contact the relevant authorities so they can laugh you off the phone.
chill out! life's too short to row on message boards
lynz

tillys mummy/lynz or whoever you are!
Its clearly pointless trying to post on this topic as you are simply being arguementative & spoiling to cause trouble.
I will say nothing more on this subject as I dont appreciate being "thrown bait" as you so eloquently put it!
:rolleyes:

lynz - i think you have to agree that sam knows what she is talking about on this stuff, and as such, its probably better to stay out of it. To be fair, sam and I have crossed swords, but I can't argue with any of her advice given :) let it go.

* YOU TOOK THE BAIT*

No wonder some very experienced people are not bothering to reply to questions, when they do this is what gets thrown back at them!!!!!
So it takes more brain power to work out who REALLY WANTS advice or help & just who is trying to play at showing how clever they can be at words!
A lot of people giving advice on here are ordinary people who have been in dogs/animals/farming for ages & giving what they know in a genuine effort to try & help folk. They are amateurs, not professionals. Some can come across abrassive, not very friendly, don`t spell very well, abrupt, not computer literate etc, but the majority of them, all deserve to be treated with more than contempt & acknowledged politely just for taking the time to reply with a possible solution.
Any body wants to pick me up on my wording please feel free to do so...... I won`t be bothering to reply:) :)

Christine, Spain.

Have to agree Christine - Give me years experience over classroom lessons and college degrees any day. The most important lessons learnt in life are not taught by a book, they are lived, regretted and remebered.

Lisa
7 O levels (after not taking advise from Parents and failing at school took them again at college)
Business Management degree
Animal knowledge - still learning as I think we all are or should be, through experience of my peers and my big Sis, not a book. :D

Now this has to be a record!!!

You've been nice to me twice in as many hours Sis. :-D

But have to agree with both you and Christine hands on experience is worth treble any book learning.

If there is anything Sam knows more about than most of us on this board it is farming, be it goats, sheep or whatever.

So what is the saying, "don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs"" lol

hi christine.
all i meant by 'took the bait' is that sam was asked whether or nor she kept her dogs confined in any way. I was wrong to use this phrase it was not exactly what i meant. What i meant is that the question posed was really a rhetorical one, - of course sam confines her dogs in some way, we all do. I think the question about confining the dogs was intended to point out that domestic animals need to be confined to some extent. And the purpose of the question, rhetorical or not, was to answer the way sam was criticising tanya for confining her goats.
You were right i chose the wrong words here but i still stand by what i MEANT to say, which i have reiterated above.
Thanks though for pointing it out though i don't want to come across as making trouble and hope that i've cleared that up.

Lynz

ive got no quibbles with people who keep their dogs in kennels, at the end of the day if you are out then you know the dogs are safe, sam im sorry i didnt realise that you kept goats, but you have your way of keeping them and i have mine, unfortunely i dont have access to a field so keep my goats in my garden my goats are happy and have been checked by a vet, they are vaccinated, insured and microchipped, the point of this post was to moan about the complaint my neighbour made about them, she has been against them from the moment i got my first 5 years ago she says they are smelly and noisy, thay are only noisy if i am late feeding them, i know if its just one minute late for feeding time, and as for smell i dont think so.
at the end of the day my goats are kept in a pen with a shed and grazing, they are able to forage, and the have fresh food regulary as well as tree cuttings.
my cuurent dogs know to keep away from the goats, but in the heat of excitement and play it would be impossible to keep the away, when the lab and springer bum tuck round the garden anything in their way goes flying.
again sam i apolgise as i didnt realise, but you shouldnt be as quick to critsise either.
tanya

Sam,
Isn't a fenced field just a large pen?
These goats are obviously well cared for so why not save your 'holier than thou' comments for someone who really doesn't care.
Ted

Well cared for? I am sure they are much loved...fed, watered and receive much attention. I am sure they all comply with DEFRA holdings regulations, are correctly enterted in the LMB AND LVM books, with all their paperwork, but I cannot agree that keeping them in a pen is right. In the same way as I think its cruel to keep rabbits in hutches & birds in cages. Sure they are "well cared for" but its not "right" in my opinion!
The point is, dogs can run around in adaquate space doing normal doggy things in an acre of garden...however goats require lots of space to do their natural browsing, climbing, grazing and just to get basic excercise. Mine used to love to charge around the fields in cooler weather.....climb trees, play chase games and browse high into the hedges.They cant do this cooped up in a pen though. Incidentally,what IS your problem? :rolleyes:

im not going to bother posting here any more as it is pointless, i dont mind being critised everyone has thier own way of doing things mygoats are happy and have plenty to do and i will leave it at that. if you look at my first post you will see that the whole point was to have a moan and get something off my chest not to have a debate about my capabilities on animal care.

Sorry you feel like that but ........and this is my opinion only...........
if somebody cannot take constructive advice regarding what is beneficial to their animals from a person who has extensive years in that breed, gender, species etc then I personally would ask what really are their motives for keeping that animal. I have 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 horse, 1 rabbit and will always and, I hasten to add, have bent over backwards and bow down to experience in ways to to improve their life. Yes I can read books, I can attend courses but I would rather follow the advice of a person who has been in horses for 25 years regarding the welfare of my horse than listen to a newly qualified university graduate who passed the exams, read the books and now thinks they know it all.

My Fiance is a Surveryor with his own practise who is struggling to find qualified surveryors to employ - why - because they all come out of university thinking 'oooh I have a degree, I can demand a salary of over £25,000 and a BMW car' yet they have diddly squat experience in the real world of surveying and think they are above working from the ground up.

As I said earlier, experience is the biggest learner we have in life, we should not disregard it, abuse it or treat it with contempt, indeed we should all learn from it.

This is not about who is right or who is wrong, just about appreciating that a persons years of experience just might make them qualified to advise/reply on a public message board, without abuse from somebody who thinks they are above that person just because they are studying for a degree.

The best animal people I know don't even own a cheque book - yet they are far more intelligent than any 'so called animal person' I know. Literacy does not = good knowledge.

I'm not being argumentative, but don't you think there is a role for both experience and literacy? A good vet cannot begin to become a vet without studying books, but he will only get better if he practises. But the knowledge has to come from somewhere. I don't think it is fair to infer that anyone is better than anyone else, especially when most of us on this board have not met.
And to be fair - still not trying to be argumentative, but the original poster wasn't asking for advice, simply wanting to have a moan, therefore should not be criticised for not following the advice they were given without asking.
Once again for the record, please don't start having a go at me, i love animals and enjoy using this board, but just recently there have been an awful lot of arguments, which escalate from simple diffferences in opinion.
Can't we all agree to disagree?

[deleted]

Helen, couldn't have put it better myself!
Lucy

I have been to a couple of goat farms (milking goats) and they were all kept in pens. Still with plenty of room, food, foraging and things to keep them occupied. My cousin kept her's in pens as well as showed them, I took 2nd place with her male at a show. She also keeps her chickens in a pen, and her horses, pigs ect. They are all fenced in. Her cows were kept out to pasture for grazing.

People keep animals differently. I for one keep 3 of my boston's kenneled when Iam not home and the other 2 have free run of the house (but are still kept in an enclosed area because they are stuck in the house). My 2 birds are kept in a cage as well as my childrens hamsters. No animals once it has been touched and confined by humans will never be back to nature and do what they are suppose to do because we humans ruined that the day we domesticated them. If u can confine ur dog and make the animal be obedient that is nothing to the nature of that, they are suppose to roam take down their prey and none of this sit, heal, stay, laydown commands that is not what nature intended that is what humans intended.

This is just my opinion on this subject :)

The Only Thing
Worse Then A Fool
Is The Person
That Argue's With
One!

ttfn :)

don't mean to offend anyone but i think sometimes people may be too quick to jump in with advice when it is not asked for. in this case gundogbest was simply having a moan at an annoying neighbour and wasn't really asking for advice on how to keep her goats as she already seems to have her way of looking after them well worked out. everyone has different ways of keeping their animals that doesn't mean to say that one particular way is necessarily right. even people with lots of experience still make mistakes even though that may well be on very rare occasions. incidently iv noticed that wildllfe parks and animal centres keep their goats in pens. if a goat is brought up in a pen from the moment they were born then i think it would be unfair on the goat to suddenly move them to a field. im sure in an ideal world gundogbest's goats would have plenty of space to roam but we do not live in an ideal world so therefore her goats are kept in pens. sorry to have rambled on and sorry if iv offended anyone.
Liz :)

agree with lizzy
sam don't want a slanging match with you that's just daft, i don't know you do i. Not questioning your knowlege/experience, just thought u were unfair jumping in and offering unwanted and probably unecessary advice to the original poster making her look 'this big'
Like i said before, no offence intended :)
Lynz