Product Description

Goats are economically valuable animals, but owners need basic information about their care, housing, breeding, and upkeep. Here is expert advice in non-technical language. Barron’s popular line of Pet Handbooks resembles Barron’s Pet Owner’s Manuals series, but are larger, having more pages, more photos and line illustrations, and more detailed advice and information. Pet owners and soon-to-be owners will find reliable information from breeders, veterinarians, and pet care experts presented in easy-to-follow, handsomely designed volumes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58095 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780764132681
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Language Notes
Text: English, German (translation)

From the Back Cover
(back cover)
The Information
You Need to Raise
Healthy Goats

Facts, advice, and fascinating insights tell you all you need to know about

Customer Reviews

Out of date in some areas, but an ok addition to others...
This reference book on goats is not the best I've seen, but has some very nice points to it. It is out of date in several areas, the most important being the issue of mineral supplementation (the problem with copper being the most glaring.) But that info can be found in other places, like newslists on the Internet and so on.

The book is smaller than most, with only 93 pages, but has some very nice illustrations and photos. The topics covered include: Buying Goats; Housing and Equipment; Feeding; Care and Management; Health Maintenance and Sickness; Breeding and Raising Young; Goat Products; and Goat Breeds of the World.

All in all this is an ok book, but should not be the primary resource for someone entering into raising goats.

Major error in feeding advice: no copper in minerals
The author states "When using mineral feed for goats you must be careful that it is free of copper...mineral feed for sheep also conforms to the requirements for goats" Not true. Sheep must not have copper, but goats do need it.

how are goats kept in Germany, but not in the US
This book is great if you want to know how to raise goats in Europe, please don't get me wrong, I am from Germany and I have nothing against how things are done there, but the way the book discribes the keeping of goats is not the way it is done in the U.S. There is a big different in how goats are raised for meat versus how people raise them for show/milk or even just a for pets with or without horns. No real serious breeder of a Dairy goat in the U.S. would keep horns on a goat or even let the kids nurse. On the other hand most Meat goat breeder will not dehorn their goat and are upset if they have a goat they have to bottlefeed. There are many different ways to keep goats in the U.S. and they are not adequately discribed in this book.

Even thought there is a part where they discribe the "Goats of the world" the breeds discribed in the "Buying Goats" do not represent the popular goat breeds available in the U.S. For example for the choice of milking goat, they only give a choice of white Saanen and colored Saanen and no other breed is recomended. Yes, one really popular goat breed for milk in the U.S. is the white Saanen goat and in the U.S., the white ones are just called Saanen and the colored Saanen are called Sable, and Sable goats are not that easy to come by in the U.S. The most popular goat breed known for its really good tasting milk, the Anglo Nubian goat (usually just called Nubian goat), is not mentioned in this part of the book. Also in the U.S. the climate can be from tropical to very cold and some goats are better suited for colder or warmer climate and this is also not covered in the "Buying Goats" chapter, since the climate in Germany where this book is written doesn't differ in termperature like it does in the U.S.

In Germany not many different types of medication are available over the counter and there you have to go to the vet to get most medications, and here in the U.S. you can get a lot of things you would need to treat the most common illnesses right in your local feed store.

The same with dehorning and castratin goats, the animal protection laws are a lot stricter in Europe and dehorning and castrating of goats is usually not done by the farmer in Germany, but taken to a veterinarian. Here in the U.S., of course you can take your goat to the vet for this, but most breeders will do it themselves.

There is a lot of good information in this book, that is the same in all countries like how goats will rather eat weeds/trees instead of grass or how they digest their food. But many other things, are just not the same in the U.S.

I could go on and on how things normally done in the U.S. are not discribed, but I would have to write my own book to cover all of it. The bottom line is, I do not think that this is the right book to get for a novice that doesn't know what is available in the feed stores or wants to know about what goat to get if they live in the U.S. But I do think it is a good book to get if you already have goats and would like to know how other countries take care of goats or like to read some information that you look at with a open mind and pick what might work for you.