Would a barn take a goat boarder?
Would a goat be less expensive to keep than a horse?
I’ve often thought about doing this but in the past I’ve had horses to ride. Not riding nowadays, and the pack goat thread got me thinking about goats again.
So who knows of a barn that is open to boarding non-equines? And do you have to keep breeding a doe in order to keep getting milk?
I know of 4-H families that keep horses & goats on their own property, and board goats for other 4-H families. (Us being one of them!)
But I think it would be pretty odd to contact a horse only facility and ask it to board a goat. Lots of horse facilities are not set up to contain goats, you have to have the right fencing…
You don’t get into breeding goats (which you will need to do if your goal is milk, as I am assuming in this case) without being serious about it - I’m not kidding, these animals are very delicate and can suffer from a great deal of problems.
Some breeds are hardier than others, and your climate plays a part (ie I have it much harder down south than northerners do) but on the whole, goats are a specialized species with care different than most other species, with very little official research out there to help you, vets who have no clue what they are doing, and a very hard learning curve.
Now, if you’re determined, it can certainly be done. I have no clue what kind of a boarding stable would take goats (Yes, goatS - you simply do not get one goat. I consider three to be the optimal minimum. Goats form extremely strong bonds with their companions and NEED that companionship) so that is a bit out of my range of knowledge, but I could certainly answer any other questions you have regarding care and breeding.
If you have loose goats, they will jump on cars and scratch them, eat anything not tied down, like the bristles out of brushes, rags and towels, horse tails, you name it, goats love to try eat it.
So, if you have goats, one is really not happy alone, you need to have a way to confine them, to keep them safe and everything else safe from them.
I don’t know of any horse barn that will board goats, although I know of several that have goats, we did ourselves, but those were our goats.
Goats that chew and eat foreign objects (such as horse tails) are goats that are lacking in proper mineral supplementation and copper (hugely important in goats) and/or are bored.
I have kept my ponies (now just one pony) in with a LARGE herd of goats for years and never even had the tail ends chewed off. Very tolerant patient ponies who would allow it as well.
However, they absolutely will jump upon anything they can, as this is a natural behavior for them (easier to see predators approaching as goats have excellent eyesight).
Oh, and any paper products will be shredded and eaten, really that’s only a couple steps away from a tree anyhow in the goats’ eyes.
I’ve had Nubian goats for 40 years. I find them to be durable/healthy animals on the whole. My horses are much more delicate health wise. Proper goat feed, vaccinations, and regular worming and they stay quite healthy. They do need their feet trimmed on a regular basis also.
Epona is correct when she says that most vets know little about goats.
A good dairy doe will give milk for a long time (sometimes as long as a couple years without re-breeding as long as you are very regular about milking times and keep up the quality of her feed and hay). Be prepared to pay pretty good money for that kind of doe. And when you re-breed her be sure it is to a top quality buck. Good quality dairy kids sell for a pretty nice price. It’s just like breeding horses—breed the best to the best if you want a decent return on your offspring.
And since they are herd animals they really need another goat for company. Two goats are much easier to keep penned/fenced than one who is always looking for company. Just left to roam the barn is asking for trouble! They taste/chew everything. Stand in the road of wherever you happen to want to be. Stand up on cars. The list goes on! Besides, a milk goat needs to eat proper goat food for proper milk production. Just running loose in the barn she will fill up on stuff you really do not want her to have. And her milk can really taste BAD if she eats some thing that has strong odors. Like kitchen vegges thrown on the compost pile. Onion/chives in your milk–not so drinkable!
They really attach to their people which does make it difficult to go away and leave someone else the milking chore. Nobody else has hands like yours! And some goats will just not let down their milk for someone else. So if you have a friend who you can count on to milk when you are gone that friend should milk now and then when you are home just to teach your goat to be comfortable with the friend for when you are gone.
As for boarding at a horse barn. One stall with a small outside run (that you would probably have to provide yourself) would do fine for two goats. Two goats will eat the same hay as one horse and as with most boarding barns you provide the grain. So expect to pay the going rate for one stalled horse.
I think I just wrote you a small book. Anyway, if you do decide to get into this enjoy!
We had a goat dairy and even held goat shows here, plus 4H goat shows also.
We milked nubians, they are lovely, big and good milkers.
We used the milk to supplement some foals, some we trained to jump on a bale so a foal could nurse.
We sold the milk in town, until the regulations became so complicated, we would have had to add machinery, so we quit.
Our vet was raised on a goat farm, so we were lucky there.
Goats may not eat horse tails for years, then one day you go to the pasture and tails are all chewed off.
We kept our goats in a goat pasture with woven wire all around.
There were some trees in there and the goats ate all the bark off those we didn’t protect with wire, killing them eventually.
Their pasture was right off the horse training barn, so we used a double stall in the corner for them, the one next to them for the young stock.
Nothing like walking in the kid pen with a handful of coke bottles with milk and rubber nipples and being mobbed for them, all climbing over you and pulling the nipples off the bottles, mayhem!
Thank you all for your replies! You are making me want to go out and get at least two goats.
You are also making me realize that I need to do a lot more reading and research and talking to goat people before I start to seriously go out looking for goats. Thank you all for the knowledgeable feedback. If I decide to move ahead on this and look for a place to keep a pair of goats, I will renew this thread or start a new one asking for more advice, or PM all of you! 
I know what a Nubian goat looks like. I have also heard of Toggenburgs. The goats I have known looked more like the breed called Alpine that I just found on the Internet. One was a doe but her owners did not keep her for milk. She lived on their farm but did not go out with their two horses.
Another possibility would be to look for farms that already have goats, and see if you could board your goat(s) there. Contact 4H organizations, hang out at county and state fairs, etc. to network with the “goat community” which might be resources for boarding and advice.
Alpines are smaller, give less milk, but with more milkfat.
They are very sweet goats, compared with others, while still kind of smart, without being pushy, with a cute character to them.
Nubians are larger, sedate, easy to get along with, but a bit more dull in personality, compared with Alpines and Toggenburgs.
At least that is what we saw reflected here when we had goat shows.
Alpines also tend to be marked so pretty and have cute small horns.
In my experience, Alpines are the largest of the standard dairy breeds.
So it’s very regional - despite breed standards of course.
Nigerian Dwarf goats are actually the smallest dairy breed.
When it comes to personality, there are generalizations that can be made of course (Nubians are loud, Saanens are snooty, Nigerians are brats, La Manchas are gentle) but it will be on a goat by goat basis too.
Horns have no place on dairy goats or goats that are around other stock or in small pastures. The risk of injury to yourself or other stock or the goat itself is too high in these cases. Many people go many years with no incidents, until they have one.
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