Our set up has a lot of goat forage, we have masses of blackberries, wild roses, garry oaks, poplar and a few chestnuts - not the kind you can eat but they do have a big nut. There are several varieties of grasses. They mainly browse and I will bring them the occasional apple tree pruning. I just have two goats at present. I had almost bought two "mini" nubians but they were wild and looked sickly - it turned out they had Johnes disease!! good thing I didn't bring them home!
After much research I had decided on the Saanen. I want the Nigerian Dwarves but I think they'd escape too easily and I want to start with unrelated kids around the same age, which has been hard to find. We have pallet fencing which the pygmy leaps up and over then he opens the gate and lets the Saanen out. I chase them back in their pen daily, well "drag" is a better word than "chase" unless I grab a blackberry branch and dangle it in front of them, then they follow pretty readily. Early this morning I was putting blackberry canes sort of like concertina wire along the top of the pallets as a deterrent. We shall see how that works out.
I plan on breeding the Saanen when she goes into heat and slowly build the herd that way, which will mean adding more housing for them. So far I've enjoyed having them, they are quiet and tame and are getting used to us. They seem to really want a human around at all times.
