What size goats do you want? There are big goats, the meat and dairy breeds; and small goats, like the Nigerian Dwarf and Pygmy. And Angoras, which are beautiful but a serious pain to keep.
Think electric fencing or board fencing with wire mesh nailed onto it.
A goat with horns [built in handles] is easier to catch than dehorned goats, but can get stuck more easily than dehorned. Dehorning is done within a few days of birth. You’d have to be a sadist to have an adult goat dehorned.
They need vaccines, worming, hoof trimming, not much grain but they do need hay unless you’re located where there is year-round grazing. Goats are browsers and if their pasture is just grass, they will appreciate your giving them some tree branches to chow down on.
Fresh water … goats have an uncanny ability to poop in the water bucket as soon as you fill it.
Pasture shelter if there’s no natural shade; and a secure shelter for nighttime.
Fencing will make or break your life as a goatherd. Even the little buggers can jump very high.
I voted yes, although it’s not necessarily cruel to keep a goat as a pet. It is, however, if you don’t know jackshit about goats. Goats can be kept as pets, but not unless you know what the fuck you’re doing.
A deer, on the other hand, is not a pet. Deer are dinner.
The reindeer kept in Finnland are a different species than the whitetail or red deer in North American woodlands and fields. Among other things, reindeer are herd animals, North American deer (outside of caribou, which if I recall correctly are related to reindeer) are not.
Bull.
My sister had an orphan deer fawn that was raised as a pet. It was a very nice pet. Housebroken, came when called, played with their dogs (except it would push the older golden retriever aside in it’s bed to lay there), went up & down steps inside the house, etc.
Eventually, it grew too big, and they brought it to Deer Park in Brainerd, MN to live with other deers.
Ostrich are dangerous, as others have mentioned. Talk to someone who has farmed them or a zookeeper. My experience with them was on the zoo side. They will not be your pet. They may try to get your guts for garters. I do not recommend.
Pygmy goats make friendly pets, and keep back brush. Fencing is an issue, as they climb and burrow, but it’s not that hard to deal with. This is an option.
Deer. Keeping wildlife as pets is illegal in many places, so you’d need to check that out first. Assuming it’s legal, and you can get one, you’re talking tremendous fencing issues, large space needs, and it’s a herd animal, so it’s going to need company. You’ll need an exotic animal vet, since your basic farm vet is likely not trained on deer. Once you’ve trained it to be tolerant of people, you can’t play “born free” with it later. Tame deer are dangerous to themselves, by not being afraid of people, houses, cars, and so on, when they should be. They are also dangerous to people. If they get scared, they can injure people, cause accidents.
Goats are either some of the smartest animals around or the dumbest depending on the way that you look at it. They are extremely fun and stubborn. One of my first pets was a goat named William. He was just a common brown goat and not especially attractive but he was extremely personable. Whenever my mother wasn’t home, my father opened the door, cooked up some popcorn and he plopped straight up on the couch to watch TV with us while constantly munching. If you like have a semi-deranged but well intended frat guy hanging around, a goat is the pet for you. They will eat everything in sight though so kiss your plants goodbye before you buddy up to one.
Deer can be kept as pets for a while at least although it isn’t recommended as a voluntary exercise. I rescued a fawn out of the woods and nursed it back to health over a couple of months. I am not sure what happened to its mother but he was screaming like a banshee when I located him. He didn’t have any visible injuries but he was in serious shock so I wrapped him in a blanket and watched over him for the next few days. He recovered and became fairly tame and friendly but he was still wild. I turned him loose as soon as he was able to survive on his own. He came around our property sporadically for the next year or so and seemed to do fine.
I also knew a woman that rescued another fawn and kept it in a fenced arena for several years. I played with it a few times and it was fairly friendly but still skittish. However, it just lept over the fence one day and was never seen again. That is the problem with keeping deer as pets. They can leap over an 8 foot fence without even thinking about it whenever they want and even a 10 or 12 foot fence is no guarantee that they won’t take a running leap straight over it.
Ostriches are nasty fuckers to put it mildly. They can literally kill you and not even think about it because they have a tiny little brain on top of a huge and powerful body…a bad combination. If having a pet velociraptor sounds like a bad idea to you, don’t even consider an ostrich because it is the same idea. The local vet where I grew up had a problem with people breaking into his practice to steal veterinary drugs like ketamine that also had street value. His solution was to put a fence with a pair of guard ostriches inside of it. The robberies stopped instantly because no one wanted to mess with those dangerous and extremely aggressive birds.
That cannot be stressed enough. A friend of ours was offered a trio of llamas, free to good home. The first time he needed medical help he began making calls. None of the local large animal vets would touch a llama. He kept calling around and eventually had to trailer the sick llama 200 miles to someone who did llama work as part of their primarily equine practice. The cost of the trailer, a day off of work, the vet fee, and he soon gave away his llamas for someone else to deal with.
A goat needs company besides you, unless you plan to spend most of your time out in the pen. Getting two goats is a problem though, because eventually one will die and the other will be lonely. So then you’d have to get another, and where will it end?
Just get the only pet worth having, a dog. We’ve spent thousands of years creating the perfect companion animal for ourselves.
Don’t keep it out in a pen, obviously.
My last visit to the petting zoo at a major zoo, a dwarf* fawn came over to me and my then 2 year old niece hoping for some munchies but was okay with me petting it.
*I’m assuming it was a dwarf. It’s head didn’t come up to my knee.
I keep goats and you’ve gotten good advice about keeping them with respect to needing more than one (because they are herd animals), providing shelter, hoof-trimming and the like. I can tell you that on a half acre or an acre, they will eat that down to the ground in about three weeks. You will need to be sure to bring in good hay, make sure they have a year-round water source and the like. I hear a lot of people say they will eat anything, and that’s not actually my experience. They browse and eat what they like and will only eat questionable things if nothing else is available.
Familiarize yourself with the common plants that can kill them: Tansy wort, rhododendrons, digitalis (fox glove), and others. Fencing does need to be tight in the absence of other herd animals that will keep them where you want them. I keep llamas, and so long as I can contain the llamas, the goats don’t wander. Llamas are easy to contain – or mine are, anyway.
For reasons already stated, I would never try to keep a deer or an ostrich. If you have questions about goats, happy to help. You can’t know too much in advance of owning livestock of any sort.
But yes, domestic goats are also excellent climbers. They will walk up your fence braces. Also they are excellent jumpers. And, they will get down on their goaty bellies and crawl on their knees if they feel inclined. I once rescued one of my baby kids from underneath a giant redwood log retaining wall; she had crawled in via a hole which looked large enough to admit a guinea pig. But then she couldn’t turn around and didn’t think to back out, so she hollered for help.
You know what are sure fire amusing? Emus. Just imagine something dumber than a duck (I can’t think of a domestic animal more stupid than a duck), tall enough to look over your head, and filled with insatiable curiousity. They are nothing like as dangerous as ostriches, and around here aren’t hard to find for sale. If you are working around them they are incredibly irritating because they won’t leave anything with a red handle alone. I do not know why.
Just one more thing … don’t even think about breeding goats until you have had your head thoroughly examined by at least 3 board certified in animal keeping shrinks. A mature buck is a menace. And the stink will attach itself to everything until you find yourself shunned wherever you go and the only resource is burning everything you own and soaking in a few gallons of skunk-off. Then, too, there’s the need to castrate the little boy kids. You have a choice: snap a rubber band on the little boy parts or have a vet slice off the bottom of the pouch and rip out the family jewels. Get earplugs.
