I love seeing my goats happy and so I had the question of what they enjoy playing with always nagging at my mind. Goats like to play, just like every other animal, and they have things they enjoy playing with. Goats can get bored especially when there is nothing to play with. Goats basically love climbing anything possible. I might say that their ancestors were mountain climbers.
Luckily, I was able to identify several creative and non-difficult ways of entertaining goats to keep them from being bored and also help them exercise their natural inventiveness and ingenuity without irritating problems. I will be sharing these with you.
Some of the items goats like to play with include:
- A climbing structure
- Different balls
- A trampoline
- Chewing brushes/branches
- Tunnels, and more.
We look into all these in better detail with guidelines on how to set them up so as to ensure maximum fun and safety for your goats.
Reasons Why You Need To Entertain Your Goats
Goats when bored will look for all means and possible ways to entertain or keep themselves busy. Sometimes, when not given an opportunity for a playground/entertainment platform, they end up damaging things while entertaining themselves.
Besides, these animals have thick muscles and have the potential to chew anything chewable. This can expose them to the danger of eating what they are not supposed to. They can push on the fence and might even knock down the fence. All these might eventually cause them to suffer mouth injury, or have bad falls from climbing unsafe surfaces.
I also found out that when a goat is bored, it develops an increased level of stress and anxiety, leading to health problems. It’s also obvious that when the goat’s health is affected, nursing of its young ones becomes a difficult task and productivity will be greatly affected.
When goats are entertained, they become happier and are always busy, thereby getting better exercise and living fun-filled lives.
Some Ways You Can Entertain Your Goats
There are many different ways of keeping your goats very busy and entertained. You can see them below:
Change of View or Landscape
You can entertain your goats by changing the landscape so they can explore new places. You can move them to different corrals especially if you have more than one, so they don’t get bored staying in the same place always.
A Place to Scratch/Rub
Goats love to scratch and run their body against walls and other objects. Consider providing a structure where they can easily go and rub their body against. A column of rough-edged bricks or concrete blocks is a good and easy option. You can also cover a post with rough material so the goats can rub their itches away.
A Climbing Structure
I stated earlier that their ancestors were mountain climbers. Goats love to climb and explore too. You can set up a climbing structure of woods with steps, ramps, and bridges. Old tires can also be used to construct a climbing surface/arena for your goats.
Different Balls
Goats, just like some other animals like playing with balls of different sizes and colors. They can kick and also push them around. They may even attempt climbing and balancing on bigger balls, so also choose balls with different stability.
Tunnels
Making passages through or under some obstacles like half-buried tires can keep your goats entertained for a long period of time. You can also use large sections of pipe, trellis, etc.
Chewing Brushes/Branches
Goats will taste and chew almost everything. Providing them with brushes and branches very often will keep them busy, entertained and can also supplement their feed. Be careful enough not to provide them with harmful or toxic plants.
Companionship
Goats are social creatures that crave for companionship just like other animals. Keeping them together in multiples keeps them happier than when they’re just very few. They also make good companions with sheep and donkeys.
The activities you offer your goats should be changed often to allow them to enjoy new and different entertainment options.
Other Components of a Goats’ Playground
You can plan your goat playground just the same way you plan a child’s playground. You can even use your children’s old playground. Some other components of a goats playground include the following:
Slides
Goats enjoy climbing and sliding down play slides. If you can afford one for them, that will be great. You can even use your children’s outgrown play slides. It will keep your goats free from boredom.
A Climbing Structure
Making a climbing structure or structures for your goat will keep them highly entertained. I already mentioned earlier that goats enjoy climbing and will climb anything within their environment.
You don’t have to spend much to get this fixed. You can just use a firm foothold and a steeply inclined surface.
A Trampoline
Trampoline will give your goats a very good play or entertainment moment. Make a provision for your goats to get up to the trampoline and watch them jumping and bouncing on it.
There is also a little safety measure for this: springs or any metal component of the playground should be lubricated often and damaged ones should be changed. This is for the safety of the goats.
Goat Playground Plans
Before putting in place a goats’ playground, you ought to settle down to make proper plans so as not to make mistakes.
It’s advisable to begin with the very best structures first and include plans of varied ways the goats can climb and reach the highest points.
The size and complexity of your goat playground are extremely flexible, but they are going to be determined, to some extent, by how high you’re willing to make them. As soon as the highest component/platform is ready, you’ll be able to create other different paths, obstacles, and intermediate structures to feature more complexity and possibilities for play.
A good goat playground plan will include:
Building of High Platforms
High platforms are best made by placing the already built high platforms on sturdy, well-footed beams.
You can also stack up wood pallets, crates, cable spools, cinder blocks, etc. and use it to place your high platforms.
It’s usually better to build more than one high platform spot as the goats may tend to compete if it’s just one. This makes it possible for multiple goats to play comfortably at a time.
Things to Climb With
After the high platforms, the next thing in mind should be the creation of paths for climbing to the platform. You can make stairs for the goats, or stack crates or cinder blocks that can grant them access to the high platform.
You can also add ramps made of boards to make it easier for young and old goats to climb the high platform. While goats can climb very steep inclines, you may want to take a board and attach some horizontal strips of wood to make a ladder, which provides a more secure footing.
Put ramps and ladders at different angles of the high platform to give your goats multiple options while climbing. Climbing steep inclined, jumping and navigating the structures makes the goats have more fun and exercise better.
Add Balancing Areas
If you want a place your goats can balance, then consider adding a series of logs or stumps of different heights where the goats can stand on and walk between. Goats also love playing on see-saws, where they challenge their balance as they constantly try to walk to the higher end.
Hiding Areas
Hiding areas are great for small or shy goats, but all goats can enjoy a game of hide-and-seek. Removing the bottom from a steel or wood barrel and placing it on its side, or using a length of culvert pipe, is a great addition to a goats’ playground. Some goats will want to be inside and walk through, while others will want to jump and play on top. Use large crates, old dog houses, or build walls to partially obstruct views and give goats more ways to interact with each other.
Keep Everything Safe and Non-toxic
While goats will probably not eat a play structure, they may mouth and chew on it from time to time. Use untreated wood, and remove any potentially toxic paints. Remove metal staples or old nails, and avoid metals that are fragile and rusted.
Goats’ Playground: Building Materials
The plan, design, and sort of playground that you wish to set up for your goats will determine the building materials you will need.
A goats’ playground is meant to be very strong and durable. The playground should be able to withstand long hours of play because goats are agile, and they jump too much. You will be able to achieve this by making the simplest choice of materials, making a competent plan, and it should be sturdy and well footed.
When you use the simplest materials and thoroughly construct the playgrounds, you will not be perturbed whether the goats will fall from a high place or get injured while playing.
Here is a general list of the materials and supplies you will need to build a goat playground:
- 4 x 4s for stable platform support
- Wood boards for ramps, bridges, and ladders
- Long wood screws, which create secure attachments, but which are also easily removed, repaired or reconfigured. You can also use bolts and nuts which have smooth edges and won’t scratch goats.
- Drivers, drills and saw
- Post hole digger, if necessary; you will need to dig footings for your posts, or half-bury tires, buckets, and barrels for stability
- Concrete for footing, if necessary, especially if your posts are high and would need additional stability
Various existing building materials may be used and repurposed, including:
- Cinder blocks and concretes
- Rubber tires: you’re to form holes within the rubber tires to avoid an accumulation of water especially during rainy days.
- Crates/boxes
- Cable spools
- Barrels and buckets with the handles removed
- Wood pallets
- Logs and stumps
- Rocks and boulders
- Old dog houses
- Old children’s play structures
- Old wooden tables
Making A DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Goats’ Playground
Gather all you need
Before you start making a do-it-yourself goats’ playground, you will need to gather everything you need. The things you will need to make it will be dependent on your plan and choice of playground.
1. Select the perfect spot
Once you are done with gathering all you need, the next thing is to select or choose the perfect spot you would want to set up the DIY playground.
The positioning of the playground matters because you need to be sure of the topography of the place before setting up your DIY playground.
2. Arrange your set up
Cover all the holes in the spool, remove the nails or screws. When this is achieved, you can then move the spool. Position the spools a short distance from each other. You can decide to place them in a shade during the hit summer and in a sunny place when the weather is cold.
I prefer you use a screw because it makes it easier for you whenever you want to disassemble it.
Set the larger spools to form a half-circle and then place the smaller spools at the center of the larger spools. This makes the playground easily accessible to both the kids and the adult goats.
The smaller spool can serve as a step for the kids to climb up to the bigger spools.
3. Connect them all together
Connecting them all together makes it easier for the goats to move from one section to the other. Remember the more you add to your DIY playground, the more fun it is for your goats.
You can use a step ladder or a bridge to connect them.
That said, once you’ve added the step ladder or bridge to connect them, it will be difficult to move the playground. You can only move it when you have removed the connections. For this reason, I said earlier that it is better to screw it than to nail it.
Conclusion
Give your goats the option of different activities to keep them entertained. Probably not all your goats will enjoy the same activity at a time. They should have choices of which playground to use.
You must not spend a lot to put up a playground for your goats. You can use your naturally-occurring features like large rocks, trees, hills, etc.