Caring for animals on the homestead only looks easy to those who have never done it. Naturally, some species are easier to care for than others.
Goats tend to be on the difficult end of the spectrum, and even a small herd will require lots of time, effort, and energy from you—and that’s when things are going well and you are enjoying pleasant springtime weather.
Everything gets harder in the wintertime, and that includes caring for goats. Although they are pretty well adapted to winter weather, optimizing your routines and instituting a winter care regimen is critical if you want them to stay healthy and remain productive.
Luckily, this isn’t rocket science, and with just a little bit of know-how, your goats will stay happy and you will stay sane when cold weather sets in. Keep reading, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know in this guide.
Your Goats Can Tolerate Cold Remarkably Well
If you were going to guess, what low temperatures would you think a goat can handle without danger? 20°F? 10°F? Try zero degrees Fahrenheit!
Sound incredible? It might be, but it’s true: goats can handle temperatures that would freeze an unprotected person solid in a matter of hours and do so with comparatively little discomfort as long as they are allowed to acclimatize to encroaching cold weather.
And this isn’t a conjecture either, or a sample size based only on my own experience: goats have, for millennia, lived wild and been domesticated in some of the coldest reaches around the globe.
Goats are Only Cold-Hardy if Healthy and Properly Prepared, Though!
The aforementioned cold-hardiness assumes two things. The first is that they have time to acclimatize to it.
Taking goats out of their warm, snug barn that they usually live in and then turning them out in the blistering cold of midwinter is a short road to illness and injury.
The second assumption is that your goats are healthy to begin with. Goats that have good nutrition, low parasite loads, and are free of illness will easily shrug off all but the worst winter weather for hours on end. Sick or underweight goats, those with chronic conditions, or those that are recovering from injury are significantly more vulnerable.
Forgetting these two factors is where so many goat herders go wrong when looking after their animals in the wintertime: a goat that is okay might grow sick and then suddenly become seriously affected by the cold, which will then exacerbate the illness in a vicious cycle. Likewise, you’ll be making a big mistake by not acclimatizing your goats as the worst winter weather approaches.
We’ll talk a little bit more about acclimating goats in a later section.
Learn the Signs and Symptoms of Cold Stress
This is a big part of winter care routines for all livestock animals, and that includes goats.
Complacency is a killer, and if you assume that your goats are just fine and dandy despite the blizzard conditions they are enduring, you might not notice something’s gone wrong until it’s way too late.
The good news is that spotting cold stress, all of which are indicators of encroaching hypothermia or pneumonia, is pretty easy.
Keep your eyes peeled for the following issues, and remember that goats may exhibit one or more at any given time, so watch out for all of them:
- Slow, sluggish movements
- Trembling/Shivering
- No appetite
- Drainage from eyes or nostrils
- Won’t move or stand
When you notice these symptoms, you’ve got to intervene. Goats should be moved to a warm environment, wrapped in a blanket or coat, and given gentle supplementary heat along with a shot of Nutri-Drench if they haven’t had any food.
A timely intervention will usually see your goat bounce back and be right as rain.
Setting Up a Winter Goat Pen
If you think that just because goats can withstand the harsh temperatures we’ve discussed, they don’t need shelter, you are dead wrong, and your animals are going to pay the price for it.
Goats, all breeds, simply must have a decent shelter to keep them warm in the harshest conditions, protect them from precipitation, and allow them to rest.
Happily, most standard goat shelters are sufficient for the task as long as they are in good repair and you maintain them.
A three-sided run-in is typically sufficient as long as it blocks wind, and a fully enclosed barn will be even better. Remember to close up cracks and gaps that will allow drafts, snow, or rain in and always situate the open side away from the prevailing winds.
Whatever type of shelter you choose, make sure there’s about 10 ft² of space on the inside per adult goat. They will naturally huddle together when sleeping for warmth, but overcrowding will cause other problems.
All winter shelters must be kept dry and stay that way. Part of this is staying on top of bedding changes (more on that in the next section), but the other part is keeping the roof, walls, and surrounding grounds maintained.
Don’t forget to factor in snowmelt, which might leak in under the walls and soak the bedding.
Bedding is Critical in the Winter
So, the bedding issue. Seasoned goat keepers already know that these critters will make a mess of their bedding in no time at all. They will poop and pee all over it and turn it into a nasty, stinking mess that’s bound to cause health problems for them.
The moisture that’s attendant with winter weather in most places is only going to exacerbate this. Despite the cold and your increased workload, you’ll have to stay on top of changing it out if you have bedding down for them in the first place.
It’s okay to go with dirt if the interior of the shelter stays very dry and your location has relatively mild winters where overnight temperatures stay in the tens or teens. Otherwise, you’ll need straw and lots of it.
Note that you don’t necessarily have to muck it out and change it; the deep litter method is viable for goats, especially in the wintertime.
The trick to making it work is to put on a new layer as soon as the current one gets wet and nasty. Don’t wait too long and try to stretch out your bedding budget, or your goats will pay for it with sores and illness.
Extra Heat Source: Good Idea or No?
Generally, not a good idea unless you’re talking about a building with integrated climate control, like a barn or stable.
Heaters, heat lamps, and the like are rarely goat-proof, and as you know, these troublemakers love nothing more than to knock things over and chew things up, electrical cords included. Heat lamps especially are notorious causes of barn and shelter fires on farms and homesteads. Safety is a major consideration here.
Plus, as long as your shelter is properly situated and protected from drafts, they just aren’t needed; once your goats pile up inside, their body heat will raise the temperature significantly.
Use Blankets and Coats Only in Emergencies
Another major mistake, one typically committed by keepers looking for TikTok-worthy photo opportunities or those motivated by misplaced care and concern.
As cute as it might be, do not give your goats wrap-around blankets, coats, or any other kind of clothing to wear in the wintertime. It will actually do more harm than good when it comes to keeping them warm.
Why? Simply, as goats are exposed to increasingly cold temperatures, their bodies respond by growing an undercoat, cashmere, that is superbly insulating. This natural coat only grows in response to prolonged cold weather.
Giving them anything that will keep them warm when they are outside will interfere with this process and ultimately hurt them in the long run. The only time you should wrap a goat with a blanket or give them a coat is in an emergency situation when they are experiencing cold stress as detailed above.
Winter Water Management
This is one of the trickiest and most annoying factors of winter care for any livestock. Goats need water all the same during winter, and they actually need more of it. But freezing conditions lead to frozen water, and goats can’t drink that or chew up snow to hydrate!
You might need to invest in a heated water source so that it stays liquid, or if that’s out of reach or an impossibility for whatever reason, you’ll have to resort to carrying warmed water out for them several times a day.
Whatever it takes, stay on top of water inspections and ensuring that it remains liquid. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it…
Winter Feeding and Diet
Winter is especially challenging for keepers because it can dramatically impact the usual diet of goats. And in places that get lots of snowfall, putting them to pasture won’t be an option: all of their food will be dead, dormant, or simply inaccessible under a layer of snow and ice.
Obviously, you’ll have to resort to supplemental feeding. Hay is a go-to winter feed for most goats, but you should plan on extra rations.
Your average goat will need more calories daily, and you should plan on 4% of their body weight extra, perhaps a little less, in dry matter. For every degree below freezing the temperature drops, give them an extra 1% body weight in food.
This extra food is critical to maintain ongoing digestion; when goats are digesting food, their bodies generate lots of extra heat, something that will help them stave off the cold.
Keep Nutri-Drench on Hand for Cold-Zapped Goats
Sometimes the cold will just overcome goats that are healthy and otherwise happy. They’ll seem out of it, reluctant to eat, and not themselves. This can even happen to goats that are well within acceptable temperature tolerances.
When one of your goats seems a little out of it, a quick shot of calories and nutrients in the form of Nutri-Drench will usually snap them out of it.
Lead them to a warm spot, make sure they are nice and dry, and then administer as long as they are standing up and able to receive it.
Winter Breeding Concerns
Not all goats breed in the winter, but some definitely do. Myotonics and Kinders are known as year-round breeders that are more apt to breed in cooler weather, especially if given some encouragement.
Toggenburgs and Alpines are seasonal breeders that typically mate early in winter or at the very end of fall to facilitate kidding in the spring.
Other seasonal breeders like Pygmies, Spanish goats, Boers, and others might breed in the winter, but if stressed or uncomfortable, are more likely to abstain.
You should probably be more concerned about breeding in the warm season because that means winter kidding…
Winter Kidding
This can be harrowing for the uninitiated, but it’s not a big deal as long as you’re ready for the new arrival and have a plan.
For starters, it’s wise to have a separate kidding pen for mom and baby, or just for the baby if worse comes to worst.
When the doe gets close, keep an eye on her and be ready to help out if required. As soon as the kid arrives, dry it off thoroughly if mom isn’t doing a good job. Having supplemental heat can be useful here.
It’s critical that the newborn feeds immediately. Ideally, they will latch onto mom and she will do what she does best. If the kid has trouble latching or if mom rejects them, you’ll have to take over and bottle feed.
As with adult goats, kids must get extra food in the wintertime – in this case that means drinking more milk – to maintain constant digestion and stay warm.
Tim is a farm boy with vast experience on homesteads, and with survival and prepping. He lives a self-reliant lifestyle along with his aging mother in a quiet and very conservative little town in Ohio. He teaches folks about security, prepping and self-sufficiency not just through his witty writing, but also in person.
Find out more about Tim and the rest of the crew here.