There are many mathematical formulas related to how high fencing needs to be to safely contain goats...but what we have found is this: if you can look up and see the top of the fence, it is not high enough. For about 48 hours after we brought Emerson and Elliot home, they wandered happily in their cozy pen in the garage, making no efforts to escape the three-foot fence I had carefully used to encircle their eating and sleeping area. (Remember, we had been expecting a newborn bottle baby, not 6-week old kids with springs in their feet!) All it took, though, was one trip outside to the picnic table (which they gleefully jumped up and down on several dozen times) and suddenly those rascals realized they had vertical jumps to rival an NBA star. "Jump-the-Fence" became the new favorite game, one they were eager to play all day long. Time for Operation GCP: Goat Containment Plan. Worried about bloat from gorging on all the new grass in the fenced yard outside, I was determined to create a safe and warm habitat for them in the garage. Alas, no matter what I tried: appliance boxes, boards, upturned dog crates, old gymnastics mats - nothing was high enough. Only when my husband dug from the bowels of the shed several 6-ft. high fence sections (from when we had a labrador retriever) were the goat boys finally beat. Just be careful never to leave anything (chair, crate, pizza box) next to the fence - all they need is that tiny height advantage and over they go.
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