I have also seen, as CD commented, some topics where I just can't figure out why it was posted...
Goats are easy animals for almost anyone to raise or raise an objection to. They require little time to maintain and take care of. Herding all of them to Jiffy Lube© every three thousand bleats or every three months is usually all that is required.
They are fun to raise and are also very profitable. I regularly make my herd available, for a tidy fee, to local schools and community theaters whenever they choose to perform Sound of Music or in many years past The Ten Commandments. I always have steady work for at least one of my goats at the numerous reenactments of Famous Moments in Chicago Cubs History. I even get to play the part of Sam!
There are just a few things you will need to do before you go out and buy yourself a herd of goats. Taking a poll of your neighbors is not one of them!
The first thing that you must do is build a pen to hold your goats. A four feet high mesh fence will work well (most all municipalities allow this...right?). It is tall enough that a goat will not jump over it and a goat can't get their head caught in it very often. I hate when that happens. They can really become an ornery cuss. I have learned how to virtually eliminate this problem by simply demonstrating to them how to extricate their head from the mesh. And the one lesson when I couldn't free my head, my most adept goat, William (he really hates being called Billy), with a tug and lots of spittle made the task seem easy. Unfortunately the necessary dental work required to reconstruct my smile was not covered by my Humana© health insurance or my GEICO© goat owners policy.
The size of your pen depends on how many goats you wish to raise. Most herders think you should put no more than four goats on an acre of land. Their reasoning is this gives the goats plenty of room and a lot of land to graze. I don't disagree. But if you don't have that much property, like I certainly don't in suburban Chicago, then you must be creative. Taking my cue from the Wrigleyville neighborhood I have increased my range land more than tenfold by adapting a common building technique found just across the street from the ballpark. Who says a smart looking twenty tier rooftop bleacher must only accommodate baseball fans? Heck...Goats Just Wanna Have Fun! And a place to run. And a place to just sit forlornly and contemplate the season.
A good way to start in the goat business is with one male goat, also called a buck, and three females, also called does. The does can have babies once a year, which are called kids. A doe usually has two kids at a time (the legendary Octo Doe effortlessly is able to quadruple that output). So with your four goats in a year you will have six little ones (or 24 if you are Octo equipped). This is the way I build up my herd, and if I'm particularly persuasive this is how I build up the number of dependents on my Form 1040. In this day and age I think this contorting and twisting of the tax code would nary raise a green-shaded eyebrow. If you play your union cards right, it just might get you a cabinet position or two, an auto maker or two, or at least a Federal Reserve Bank!
Goats are easy to raise in hot and cold weather and therefore Chicago is nearly the perfect habitat! A good shelter, tax and otherwise, is all both you and your herd need to thrive. They get most of the vitamins and minerals they need from the land and whatever you toss on to the rooftop. You will only need to feed them hay or the newspaper (less the slick ad inserts). Some type of supplement, like rock salt or banana peels, are also needed on a daily basis. They require a minimal investment and a fair amount of shovel work, but the return is well worth the effort. When you sell your goats you can expect to receive from $50 to $300 for each goat, depending on what breed you raise. With a little marketing razzle dazzle you may occasionally fetch a sum approaching what the Bartman Ball brought. And if not, guess what? There's always next year!
Whether you decide to raise a goat for a pet, raise them for a profit, raise them repeatedly for exercise, or merely raise them as a means to torment those Cubbies on the North side I know you will enjoy it. How can you not?
...but usually done by a person we know and are familiar with and know they mean no harm.
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