The Backyard Goat: An Introductory Guide to Keeping and Enjoying Pet Goats, from Feeding and Housing to Making Your Own Cheese Kindle Edition

I am planning to buy 2 Pygmy goats in the next few weeks and wanted a book with a more detailed description of what I needed in order to prepare for my kids and then take care of them. This book provided that information (for many breeds- not just Pygmy) along with a lot of reference material so that I I have a go-to source once I have the goats. The ebook formatting was good, but not perfect. Still, I didn’t have any trouble distinguishing the actual chapter information from the interesting stories included here and there along the way. The advantage of the ebook is that the reference links are live and easily searchable. I was pleasantly surprised with the history, vintage photographs, and personal stories. I expect to love my new goats, but now I’m even more excited about interacting with them as I have a much broader view of their capabilities. If you already have years of experience, this book probably won’t provide much new information (although I would imagine at least a few of the stories would be new and interesting) but for a novice I believe it will be very helpful.

This book is great as a reference but when it came to goats There is so much more to learn first hand than any one account or study could tell/teach you. I purchased after owning goats. it didn't really add a whole lot to my data bank or experience bar but would have been fairly useful before owning the goats. PS... they do eat everything including your house siding.

I love goats. I've only spent limited time with them in petting zoo or organic farm settings, but something about them speaks to me. They are like a cat crossed with a horse - I appreciate their personality, their curiosity, and their cleverness. Plus, who could scratch one under the chin while looking into those peculiar eyes and not fall in love?I made a resolution to learn more about homesteading and self-sufficiency this year. I'm not in a place where I can do a lot of it, but I thought I'd teach myself anyway. Do I really want chickens, goats, or sheep? How much trouble are they? What's required? How hard is it to make goat cheese or soap, or to encourage chickens to lay eggs? I ordered this book to tackle the goat questions.Overall, this is a very detailed book. It's got tons of info, from choosing a goat to training one for working or tricks. I'm only about halfway through, but I terrifically pleased with it. It's made me realize just how troublesomely fun goats would be and what it would take to have milking goats as opposed to pets.As a complete newbie to any farm animal other than horses, this is a great introduction and has enough detail that I think it could carry you through owning goats for several years. Whether you want pets/friends or you're looking to get into breeding goats, I'd recommend this as a great reference book.

This little book is packed with amazing information, drawings and resources! I will use this for the rest of my adventure with my goats. It is more than just how to keep them and how to feed them, it is full of amazing info on how to train them or pack them if that is your ultimate goal. It is hard to find an affordable pack goat book and I love the clicker method of training the goats. This goat book is all you will ever need. Brilliant!

I am planning on getting goats and so I bought this book. I have had horses and chickens (dogs, cats, rabbits, etc.) so I am used to working with animals and found this book to be a great introduction. I bought the Kindle edition and my only negative is that it is sometime very difficult to match pictures with captions so as to tell which breed goes with which image. Other than that, the book appears to be an easy to read, thorough introduction. In fact, I was reading the book on an airplane in my large easy to view font. When we landed I asked the man sitting next to me if he knew anything about goats. He said, "I do now." And, he was now thinking of getting some goats too!

This was hard to rate because in some ways it's awful, in others it's very interesting.I'll start with the bad stuff: If you read this on your Kindle, be prepared for A MESS. This has clearly not been made with Kindle in mind, and the converstion to ebook format has gone very, very bad (I imagine/hope the physical version is not like this). Chapters and illustrations pop up where they make no sense. It is also , in some parts, not written very well. Sometimes information comes up that is completely irrelevant to the current chapter, so even if they layout and chapters hadn't been messed up, it would still be somewhat confusing. The first impression is not a good one.Other than that, it contain a lot of useful information, including chapters on training pack and harness goats, which most books seem to skip completely. It even has a section about clicker training (which I wish was followed through when it comes to the cart training bit, but there for some reason a more traditional method is described).

This book is very well written, but for what i was looking for it just didn't do it for me. (Why i gave 3/5 stars). I had gotten the Storey's Guide on raising sheep and was going to get the Guide on Dairy Goats but someone recommended me this book and i don't know why. It gave information; just not nearly enough. It skimmed over topics. And the fact i skipped out on three chapters just because it had nothing to do with Dairy Goats: "Training and Tricks" and "Wagons, ho!" and "Packing with Goats" which happened to be a big chunk of the book. But i will admit I never thought "Goat History" could be so fun to read. The colored pictures were beautiful in this book, the pictures in "Enjoying your Goat" were especially fun to see. I would recommend this book to someone just wanting general information. But for someone who KNOWS they want Goats and want lots of facts on pastures, health, diet etc i would tell them to look else where.

For a new goat owner, such as myself, a great read and very informative. I would recommend this book to everyone!

Fantastic book. Everything you need to know about goats. After reading it you feel like having one at home.

This book is a must-have for anyone considering or starting out with goats, whether they are to be pets or for other small-scale uses. The author obviously knows and understands goats well, recognizes the pitfalls and advantages of modern goat-keeping, and gives really sound advice. Beautifully and clearly laid out and illustrated to give easy to follow instructions and an enjoyable read, plus plenty of fun and interesting facts.

As described