As long as they aren't crowded too much, as long as they have feed - which doesn't HAVE to all be top quality, as the purpose is as much to keep them occupied as to nourish them - then I wouldn't worry about it. If you can safely give them toys - heads of cabbage, branches to strip bark off, milk jugs with a few pebbles inside to toss around, etc., then you would add to the entertainment factor, but it's not necessary. If you want, and are really worried about them being bored, AND if you have the time and room, I am sure you can handle them, teach them tricks, to lead well, to tie, have their feet handled, to carry packs, etc.. If you opt for this, I would try to work with them individually, separated from the rest, as the other(s) will get in the way. Of course, if the snow is really deep, then you may not have the room for this, in which case, ignore it.

i suggest talking to your local vet, about his eating habits it sounds to me like he is just being lazy and living on easy street . Zeke

Thanks so much, Cheribelle. I would be horrified if something like that happened to me. I'm not glad it happened to you, but I'm glad you shared so I didn't do the same thing. I'll ask this again: will three strands of normal wire work if I added electric? HOw many electric wires would I have to add? If we did electric, it would be solar. Does that work well? The fencing here was designed for horses. They are not disbudded. They are not pygmy/dairy goats as in small dairy goats - they are a cross between pygmy goats and full-sized dairy goats. I would never get a buck, but mabye have kids in the future. What is a no-climb fence? Sorry I'm flooding you guys with questions, but you know what you're doing - If I'd have gone with the source that told me tethering should work, I'd have a pair of dead goats. I just want to make sure I do the best for them that I can, and if you answer one question at all, that would make a difference. I can't tell you how glad I am to have found this. Sorry, I'm rambling. =)

Great thread! And I'm curious about how some of you are fairing now in contrast to the earlier entries. Roberta - sounds like you've learned a lot in the first year! How about the rest? I guess I've been fortunate to live in a rural area most of my life. My parents left "suburbia" when I was 7 to move to a rural farm area. We never farmed ourselves, but I had plenty of opportunity to work on farms growning up. Some of my best friends were farmers! I loved it so much I studied agriculture in college, but didn't really have opportunity to put any of it to personal use until just the past few years. We live on 50+/- acres, of which 40 is woodlot. We have an acre of pasture, an acre of "something between the pasture and the yard", and about three acres of yard cleared. DH likes self-sufficiency and while he is employed full-time elsewhere, in his heart he's a farmer. I started growing gardens here as soon as I arrived in 1992. The first year DH "tilled" me a plot with his bulldozer and dug a flower bed using an excavator. Yep - he's pretty inventive :) Now I have a huge vegetable garden and many, many flower/herb/whatever gardens. We built an unheated greenhouse about 5 years ago and it's been great! We will have to replace the plastic this summer and we are thinking glass instead, and heat. It's big though, so I'm not sure if we can do it all glass or just the roof (14'x28'). I grow a lot of our veggies and have been canning/freezing for years, but since returning to work and then school myself three years ago, I have scaled back considerably. We've tried our hand at raising pigs outdoors - mostly successful, except for one lost piglet to pneumonia and a "loose pig" incident that people are still laughing about. The pork was fabulous! Three years ago we started raising our own beef. We pastured three smaller (500lbs) calves in 2006 from May to October. We've raised herefords in the past, but this year we got two Charolais and a Belted Galloway. I think we'll definately be doing Charolais again - good weight gain. They are fed about a litre of grain daily "to keep them tame", DH says. We buy a little hay in October when the pasture goes down. It's truly the best beef I've ever had! I cannot bring myself to buy beef at the grocers anymore. I will buy from other local farmers, but when you have 500 lbs of beef in your freezer it lasts awhile! We don't sell beef, but have family and friends who "go in" on the cattle and split the costs of raising/butchering them. Three preteen/teen kids help devour our portion in less than a year. I have a friend who started doing meat birds so I got in on it with him. We did 40 birds between three families this year. We aren't very orthodox about it, that's for sure. I can't remember how old the birds were exactly, but the average weight was 7-8 lbs - they were a tad over 8 weeks, I think :) Only two lost - raccoons. I also acquired layers in May 2005 as day-olds from another friend. My flock is currently 6 hens and a roo, mostly Barred Rock, but with a Silkie, and a couple of crosses. I've lost 4 layers since I started, but not to predators. One eggbound, two were sickly upon arrival, and a Silkie for unexplained reasons - she just died (age maybe, though she was supposed to be a "year old"). The woodlot is a new addition to our "farm" and DH cuts our firewood every winter. He's actually out there now clearing a spot for our future barn - yippee! We hope to have horses in a couple of years - DH wants drafts for working in the woods, the kids and I just want horses to ride and play with. We love this life and I really can't see us ever leaving here. I feel pretty fortunate to be able to be at least partly self-sufficient.