Some people want cats, some people want dogs, some people want lizards, and some people want goats. But unlike the rest of those options, goats aren’t exactly a common house pet. If you want a goat, you might wonder, can you even keep goats in a residential area?
You can keep goats in a residential area as long as the set-up complies with local government guidelines and regulations. You do not need a license to own a pet goat, but goats require much care and effort to make sure they’re happy and healthy.
Goats aren’t beginner pets, and before you buy one, you need to make sure that you’ve set up your property to properly care for and sustain the life of a goat.
Do I Need a Goat License?
A question many people will ask when looking into buying a goat is: “Do I need a license to own a goat?” or even “Do I need to pay for a goat license each year like I pay for my dog’s license each year?”
The answer is no. Goats don’t need licenses, and you don’t need a license to have one or two pet goats. According to the United States Department of Agriculture: “anyone selling hoofstock, if the majority of sales of domesticated farm hoofstock (sheep, cattle, goats, pigs, llamas) are for regulated purposes, and more than 10 of those animals are sold for regulated purposes in a calendar year, then the seller must be licensed.”
So unless you’re selling “hoofstock” for “regulated purposes,” there’s no need to worry about being licensed. And the only reason you would ever need to register a goat is if you wanted to use that goat for shows. And If you are looking to register your goat for show, check out this website for more information.
City Regulations
Each city is different, and it’s impossible to go over every single city in this short internet article. This might be obvious, but the best way to know if your specific city allows residential goats is by Googling it yourself.
That being said, there are some generalities. For example, as time passes, more and more areas and cities are changing laws and allowing agricultural animals (such as bees, chickens, and goats) to be raised and kept in residential areas.
According to the American Planning Association, backyard agricultural animals, such as chickens, other birds (such as ducks, or others), and pygmy goats are generally permitted in most residential and city areas.
Pygmy goats are probably more widely accepted in residential areas due to their small size and overall adorableness. Pygmy goats are a breed of miniature goats, which explains why they’re so cute. Sure, all goats are adorable, but these ones are regular goats in tiny packages.
They’re smaller, they eat less, and they’re easier to handle than full-sized goats. If you want a pet goat, but you’re not sure if you have enough space for a normal-sized billy goat, you might want to consider getting an adorable miniature goat of your own.
Important Considerations to Keep a Goat (or Goats)
Yard Size
There is a bunch of different information online, but generally speaking, if you want your goats to be happy and healthy, you need to have 250 square feet of land per goat. So if you want one goat, you need 250 square feet of land. If you want two goats, you need 500 square feet of land for both of them to be sufficiently cared for.
If you’re living in an apartment or a city, it’s probably not a good idea to get a goat for the moment. You don’t want yourself and your furry little friend to both be miserable. And goats usually don’t like living alone. If you want to get a pet goat, you might want to wait until you have a backyard with 500 square feet to spare–so you can get two cute buddies that can make you happy and keep each other content when you’re not there to care for them.
Barriers and Fences
Goats have a tendency to slip through exits and holes, and if they end up in your neighbor’s yard (eating all of their newly planted flowers), you might have to end up paying for all the damages. This is why it’s important that the goat enclosure is just that: enclosed. You don’t want your goat to wander off and you really don’t want them to eat some stranger’s (or your) prized vegetable garden.
Goats are also picky eaters, which might sound like a contradiction, but it’s not. They eat a lot of different things, but they won’t eat hay that’s been on the ground or near their own feces. They have standards. You’ll have to make sure to use a feeder that keeps their food sufficiently separated from the ground.
Incredibly Loud
Goats, as popular internet trends have shown, can be louder than a jet engine. Watching the “Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ sung by a goat” YouTube video might be funny the first time, it’s a lot less funny when you’re living with a screaming goat that just won’t shut up.
Some people will claim that their goats are as quiet as a mouse, but the goats that are the loudest are the lonely ones. A lonely goat will bleat all day long, through the sun, moon, and rain. But if you take our advice and adopt at least two, then not only will the goat shut up, but their overall happiness level and health will raise. They will still make noise, but they won’t be crying out all day and all night for a friend when they’ve got a buddy standing right next to them.
However, that’s not the only reason goats are loud. Other goats that are extremely loud are the ones that are “in heat,” which is just a phrase that means the goats (female nanny goats) are ready to mate. Nanny goats or does that are in heat will be really loud and obnoxious for twelve to thirty-six hours every twenty-one days for their cycle. There isn’t really a solution for this noise. You and all of your neighbors will just have to weather the storm until the nanny goat has calmed down. But if you don’t get a nanny goat, you won’t have this problem.