[Animal Tutorial] Goats: Housing, Feeding & Breeding

Welcome to the Farming Simulator Academy! In this tutorial, we’re focusing on goats. We’ll show you how to feed, take care and sell the “greatest of all time”-companions.

Goats husbandry: housing & feeding

Goats are kept in the same pastures and barns as sheep. If you want some wool, you need to get sheep, as goats are kept to produce milk. They are a cheaper and easier alternative to cows.

Housing options

• Like sheep, goats are kept in pastures, barns, or large barns
• In pastures, you have to provide feed and water. You can only house a few goats.
• Barns on the other hand only require you to provide feed and have enough space to breed.
• Goats produce milk in every housing option. We recommend a barn instead of the pasture.

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Feeding options

Goats are quite easy to handle: Feed them grass or hay. No matter which option you choose, both help your goats to achieve 100% productivity.

If you mow your fields yourself, it's of course easier to feed fresh grass without turning it into hay. Alternatively, you can buy bales of hay at the dealership.

How to get water: If you keep goats in a pasture, you need to provide water. Get yourself a tank trailer to transport water. You get water by either filling it from a water tank that you can buy in the "container" tab of the construction menu, or you just reverse the tanker trailer attached to your tractor into water - a river or lake, for example. Water from a lake or river is free, tapping a tank container is not. 

What you need for keeping sheep 

• You need a tractor with a front loader attachment, a pallet fork and a bale spike. To be able to use the front loader on the tractor, you must first purchase the necessary attachment from the dealer. To do this, drive the tractor to the dealer, park the machine in the vehicle options field and select the appropriate attachment.
• You need a barn. Here you can choose between four versions in the construction menu. You can choose between a sheep pasture, two sheep barns and a large sheep barn in the "Sheep" tab. They differ in size and feeding options. While you have to provide feed and water for the sheep pasture, you only need to provide food with a barn.

Optional:

• You can use an animal trailer to transport the animals between the cattle dealer and the barn if you buy or sell them. You don't have to, though. You only need a trailer if you want to transfer goats from one barn to another barn. 
  • Tip! You do not have to buy a trailer. It only costs a tiny fee to buy or sell them directly at the barn. Only go ahead if you want the full cattle farmer role-play experience. 
  • Tip! Look for the sheep icon at the dealership when shopping for a trailer in the shop. It indicates that sheep and goats can be transported with this trailer.

Equipment Selection (recommendation) 

• Tractor: John Deere 3650
• Front Loader Attacher: Quicke Q4M
• Pallet Fork: albutt
• Bale Spike: albutt
• Barn: Sheep Barn (No Brand)

Let’s go to work!

Step 1: Buying the goats

Choose between zero, three and 16 months old goats. Younger goats do not produce any milk or breed. When you buy goats at the barn, you can have them delivered for a small fee. Alternatively, if you have bought a trailer, you can drive it to the animal dealership and buy them on-site to transport them yourself.

Tip! Don’t fill the barn to the limit. This will save you money, and you will also get new goats through breeding. 

Step 2: Feeding

Feed your goats freshly cut grass or hay: either loose or in the form of bales. You can see if you have fed them correctly by looking at the health info point. It increases over time, and if it does, the goats will start to produce milk and are able to reproduce.

Step 3: Selling Animals and Products

You can either sell the animals themselves, if you focus on breeding them, and sell their milk. You can also process your goat milk into bottled milk, butter, or goat cheese. To transport your goods, you need your front loader attacher and the pallet fork. If you have a truck, you can deliver multiple pallets at once.

You can process things like butter even further at the bakery and order some delicious strawberry cake - just add a few more ingredients!

Breeding Goats

Whether goats reproduce depends on three factors: Their age, the space available in the barn and the health of the animals. Starting at the age of eight months, the animals become mature and can produce offspring.

However, this is only possible if there is room for more goats in the barn, and their health must always be at 100%. You can achieve this by feeding the animals regularly to keep them well-fed.

Well done!

Congratulations, you have successfully bred goats! Take some time and start the next lesson when you are ready. And don't forget to check on your animals from time to time.