How to Prepare for a Mild Winter with Goats

Now, there are a lot of articles out there about how to get goats through the winter in places like Montana and Maine and where winters can be extreme, but I had trouble finding information on keeping goats with more mild temps. As we’re entering winter here in the PNW, I thought I’d talk about how we keep our goats warm in our more mild winters.

We do have cold winters, and get snow and freezing temps, but nothing like places like Montana that always have snow on the ground and temps reach below zero constantly. There, there are many more things goats need to stay warm, but here in the PNW it’s pretty simple.

Goats have very thick coats, and they get very fluffy come winter, so they can generally keep warm fine. They also like to cuddle at night and eat more in late fall to get a little chubbier. You shouldn’t need to provide goats with coats or heat lamps, and it’s best to try to prevent from doing this. Coats and heat lamps cause goats to think it’s warming up, and loose their winter coats, so it’s best to simply let their fur keep them warm.

One thing you do need to do is make sure they have a nice and dry shelter to be in during rain and snow. It doesn’t need to be fancy like my goat barn, but it should be adequate protection from rain and water as well as draft free.

Water buckets that aren’t somewhere warm might need a heater if they aren’t being changed daily. Personally, we haven’t had problems with the water in our barn freezing, but we do use a heated water bucket outside. Be careful if using a water heater that the goats can’t chew on the heater or cord. They do try to eat the cord, so it’s good to find a bucket with cord that wrapped in something, like wire or just some pvc pipe that will prevent the goats from eating it.

Goats also like to have warm water when it’s cold out. Its good to promote drinking water and also keep the goats a little warmer.

One thing you should keep in mind is young goat kids aren’t yet hardy enough to survive cold temps, and they should be brought in the house on really cold nights and wear sweaters or coats of some sort. The best thing would be to make sure that your goats don’t kid in the winter, but rather early fall or springtime.

What’s important to remember is goats are hardy animals and can survive in colder temps without much of a problem. With proper precautions, they will survive the winter just fine.