Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
Originally Posted by exbiologist
Originally Posted by brinky72
For you goat owners. What breed is best suited for hauling? And outside of initial purchase, how much do they run you dollar wise to keep. Just curious. Once upon a time I was thinking of a couple of solid Rottweilers or maybe mastiffs that were cart trained would be handy. Not sure if picking up three pound dog turds would outweigh throwing hay bales.


Sorry I missed this. I use Alpine and Alpine crosses. I think they are the easiest to find with good size. If I bred my own I would do Alpines hybridized with any of the Swiss type breeds (Alpine, Toggenburg, Oberhasli, Saanen). Two of my best kids are Saanen and Togg crosses.

Plan about $30-$40 per goat for feed per month. I run pretty close to $200 for my 7 each month. You may not need or want 7, but my hope was to be able to handle a camp for 2-3 guys and one elk out on the same trip. 6 would probably do that.

Just for comparison, my 5 llamas will eat a bit less than 1/2 bale of grass hay a day, total. Grass hay bales usually run in the 70 to 80lb range so a ton will last about 50 days. Right now around here grass hay is selling for about $9/bale or $225/ton. That works out to about $25 to 27/llama/month. They have an extremely efficient feed conversion rate and will eat far less per lb of body weight than most other large animals. You can feed them alfalfa but they get too fat on it. In the spring, you have to work harder to get the fat off to get them in shape for packing.



Thanks both of you. Do Llamas get spooky with bear carcasses or lion? I’ve heard that they are good at keeping predators away like coyotes or wolves. Is this true or fake news.

Keep your powder dry and stay frosty my friends.