Читать книгу Raising Goats For Dummies - Cheryl K. Smith - Страница 29

Expect to spend at least a half hour each morning and a half hour each evening on routine goat care. If you get a lot of goats or use them for a specialty such as milk, meat, or fiber, you need to budget more time. (Part 4 tells you about each of these situations.)

Goats need a supply of hay and/or browse (grasses and other plants they can find in a pasture) and clean water at all times. (Chapter 6 gives you the details on what goats eat.) The routine twice-daily care you need to plan for includes feeding, changing water, cleaning buckets, observing your goats to make sure they are healthy and acting normal, making sure they’re safe and secure each night, and letting them out in the morning. Of course, you probably want to spend more time just being with them after you discover how fascinating they are.

Plan also to spend an hour or more each month on regular grooming and goat care such as hoof trimming, injections or other treatment, and cleaning their living area. (Chapter 9 runs through the routine care that goats need.) If you breed, show, shear, or slaughter your goats, you spend many more hours with your goats intermittently. And if one of your goats gets sick, you need time to provide care or coordinate with a vet. (Chapter 11 addresses common illnesses.)

If you work and don’t have a reliable helper, you need to have some flexibility to deal with problems. If you work outside your home and have long or erratic hours, a helper is essential.