We use three sided run-in type shelters for our goats here in Coastal Virginia. We do block off part of the opening in the winter to help reduce drafts.

Provide a good bedding of straw to help provide warmth, and be certain that the shelter is large enough. The shelter serves to protect your goats from the weather, cold, heat, rain, wind and snow. This particular shelter was built on skids, we move it from pasture to pasture with our tractor.

The trickiest part of housing for your goats is the fencing around them! On our supply page (under Books, education) we mentioned Premier Fence Company. Premier has a wonderful brochure and a complete line of products for goats. We have found that field fence along the outer perimeter with 3 strands of hot wire (6", 18", and 48") has worked best for us. We chose to run field fence and electric wire on the perimeter to help reduce the problem with stray dogs. It has worked so far. On the inner fencelines, we run just electric wire. We run 5 strands. 6", 12", 20", 30", and 48".

Once the goats have been on the farm a few weeks, we do not even worry about them. One thing about goats, that may comfort you is that they like to be around other goats! So if they get out, they generally stay very close, or go back in before you know they were missing.

Along with the shelter we built Feeding Shelves. Goats can get a little aggressive at feeding time. To ensure that all of the goats have the same advantage at feeding time we built two separate feeding shelves. Basicly, they are like open wooden crates, that have a shelf and seperators. The seperators serve to keep the goats from butting each other out of the way. They put there head in their slot and eat. The shelf helps keep the food up and the goats heads above the ground away from parasites.

We offer a big salt block, and tubs of drinking water. We move our goats onto fresh pastures as often as possible, but we always offer them some type of hay along with their feed.