Grant - City goats: the Goat Justice Leagues guide to backyard goat keeping

CITY GOATS

THE GOAT JUSTICE LEAGUES GUIDE TO BACKYARD GOAT KEEPING

JENNIE P. GRANT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY HARLEY SOLTES

Some of the names in this book have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Copyright 2012 by Jennie Grant
Photography 2012 Harley Soltes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Skipstone, an imprint of The Mountaineers Books
Printed in USA

First printing 2012
15 14 13 12 5 4 3 2 1

Copy Editor: Rebecca Pepper
Design: Jane Jeszeck, www.jigsawseattle.com
Cover photograph: Harley Soltes
Illustrator: Joshua McNichols
All photographs by Harley Soltes unless otherwise credited
Frontispiece: When Melany Vorass has kitchen scraps, she opens her kitchen window and Lily reaches in, devours the scrap, and turns it into a tidy pellet of compost gold within just twelve hours.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grant, Jennie Palches.

City goats : the Goat Justice Leagues guide to backyard goat keeping / by Jennie Palches Grant ; photographs by Harley Soltes.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-59485-699-0 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-59485-700-3 (ebook) 1. Goats. I. Title.

SF383.G73 2012

636.39dc23

2012019124

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-699-0
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-700-3
ISBN (epub edition): 978-1-59485-700-3

Skipstone
1001 SW Klickitat Way
Suite 201
Seattle, Washington 98134
206.223.6303
www.skipstonebooks.org
www.mountaineersbooks.org

To my son,
Spencer Grant Kneass, for giving me
hope and encouragement
by finding parts of City Goats
entertaining, despite it containing
no real superheroes,
no disgusting but lovable aliens,
and no scary cliff-hangers

An attractive goat, goat shed, and well-tended goat yard can add visual interest to your garden.

Eloise, who lives on a diet of blackberry leaves and alfalfa, wishes she could try a cupcake.

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT HOW TO CARE FOR URBAN DAIRY GOATS. You might think such a book is unnecessary, given that there are already plenty of goat-care books taking up space on bookshelves across America. You might even be thinking something like, Do urban goats really need a book devoted to them? Deep down, isnt a goat just a goat, whether it lives in a hip and liberal urban center, a spacious farm run by survivalists, or a hippie alternative co-op in the country? If you are thinking along these lines, you do have a point. Goats, whatever their socioeconomic status, whatever the style of their ears, whatever their stature, all have very similar needs. While their personalities do differ, what makes them happy, what feeds their souls and their rumens, is, at its innermost core, basically the same.

To conclude that a book on urban dairy goats is unnecessary, however, would be to conclude wrongly. Caring for an urban goat has unique challenges. Most urban ruminants dont have the land that their more fortunate country cousins enjoy. Some live in backyards as small as 400 square feet. These goats have neither dedicated kidding stalls nor barns full to the rafters with alfalfa from the field out back.

In many ways, the special needs of the urban goat can be compared with the special needs of your average Manhattanite. For example, in Manhattan, due to the prohibitive cost of real estate, apartments must be ingeniously designed to ensure that every square inch serves a purpose. In much the same way, urban goats require cleverly designed goat sheds that can serve as shelter in a storm, kidding stall, and kid pen.

In addition, because so much of the natural world of Manhattan has been torn down and replaced with skyscrapers, there is little left in the way of natural beauty to enrich the lives of Manhattans inhabitants. As a result, Manhattanites are constantly in the market for interesting toys and engaging activities. This is how Broadway came to be. Ditto 5th Avenue. Just like Manhattanites, urban goats require entertainment in lieu of bounteous natural surroundings. They require special goat playscapes, feeders that provide brush in the shape of a bush, and occasional human companionship and interaction.

Exercise is another problem for the residents of New York, and even for residents of the suburbs and rural outlands. Modern Americans, unlike the farmers of old, who did physical labor from sunup to sundown, do not get the exercise they need while going about their daily business. As a result, they must join health clubs and walk or run for the sole purpose of walking or running. Such is the case with city goats. Without acres to roam in search of their daily bread, urban goats do best if they get a half hour of cardio work every day.

Although this book will stress the special needs of urban goats, it will also focus on the needs of the inexperienced urban goat keeper. Many of the goat care books on the market today can leave someone just embarking on the adventure of goat keeping with the feeling that he or she must be able to head out to the goat shed with a .22 to cull the herd, own and know how to use an emasculator to neuter young bucklings, and take a red hot disbudding iron to the head of a four-day-old kid to prevent horns from growing. This book aims to remind you that you do not need the heart and muscle of a Civil War surgeon to own goats. There is no shame in writing a check to have these unpleasant tasks done for you. In fact, for those with small herds of two or three goats, hiring a skilled professional is often more economical than purchasing the tools to do the tasks yourself.

My experience with keeping goats has brought me much joy, and I have learned a great dealnot just about goats, but about people as well. From the questions friends ask me, such as, You mean goats dont just spontaneously lactate? They have to have kids first? I have discovered how wildly out of touch we all are with our food. And from haggling with city officials over what constitutes a pet vs. a farm animal, I have come to think critically of our cultures insistence upon distinguishing between the two. Despite being a nation of animal lovers, where many dogs are so well fed that they require diet kibble, a majority of the states in our nation, particularly the agricultural ones, exempt farm animals from animal cruelty laws. Goats have helped me see how very wrong and problematic this distinction really is.