Housing Goats in Extremely Hot Weather

[Taffy]

Those of you who have goats in extremely hot areas how do you house your goats? We are headed to 108*-109* for the next 5 days. This is the hottest it will have been while I've owned goats. My goats have a 3 sided lean to for shelter and fresh water but with no breeze it's really hot!

[Teckelhut]

Those of you who have goats in extremely hot areas how do you house your goats? We are headed to 108*-109* for the next 5 days. This is the hottest it will have been while I've owned goats. My goats have a 3 sided lean to for shelter and fresh water but with no breeze it's really hot!

It gets hot here on the High Desert. We have learned three key ways to help animals during the heat whether they are horses, goats, chickens or rabbits.

#1 Have water available at all times.

#2 Have shade available at all times.

#3 Do not work them, or get them worked up about anything.

#4 If you want to, box fans placed out of the reach of the animal, helps allot.

Some people are tempted to cool the water troughs down. Don't. There is a reason for this. Any animal that drinks water has to raise that water's temp to the body's core temp once they have ingested it. Which means their body produces heat by way of the energy they spend to raise the water to core temp. (Tip. If you are wanting to loss weight. Drink your water ice cold. Your body uses calories to raise that water to core temp before it can process it. While it does NOT use up a bunch of calories it still uses calories) This will actually raise the temperature of the animal. If you do need to cool the animal off, get a turkish towel, dunk it in water, and lay it on the animal. The natural evaporation "sucks" the heat off the animal. We use the towel trick, or cool coats, for dogs but it will work on all animals. Works wonders.

[sweetgoatmama]

You can use the mister tubes that attach to the hose. Put them where the goats can lie under them but can get away from them if they want to. Also hose down the roof if it's tin.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Ill be putting up some large piece of think garden fabric tomorrow over a patch of green weeds tomorrow for the milkers so it will shade the area over the cooler green weeds. Hoping this will cool from below and shade from above. But other then good shade and water, they just kinda have to tough it out. But if it make you feel any better because they are out in it as it gradually heats up from moving to afternoon, its not nearly as bad as it feels when you go out from an air conditioned house. Ill be working in this stuff all week and it works the same way. I dont really feel the heat till over noon.

If they will allow it and the flies dont bug em to much, I kinda like the mister idea. Here though the flies would just be to awful as they love to go after wet anything but wet goats would be like a homing beacon.

[sweetgoatmama]

THe good news about the misters is they don't actually lie right in them and get real wet. They do tend to stay close but not so close that they are soggy. I guess they have to balance their dislike of being wet with their desire to be cool. Especially if you can get them up higher where it disperses a bit before it hits the ground.

[Teckelhut]

Misters are kinda like a reverse swamp cooler. Rather that sucking air through a filter, the air blows through the water in a since.

[Charlie Horse]

None of my cars even have air conditioning. One doesn't have a radio or cancelling turn signals. You think I'm going to treat my goats to AC? Let them SUFFER like me! Bwahahahaha

Modern people and their luxuries. Like hair on their heads and a full set of teeth. Sheesh.