Goat:
https://www.southernliving.com/community/rick-bragg-southern-journal-trade-dayFive years ago, my brothers and I drove to a vast flea market in Collinsville, Alabama, to buy a bantam rooster for our mother. We left with two ducks, two chickens, a Hamilton watch, two fig trees, a sack of green onions, a bone-handled pocketknife, a bushel of sweet potatoes, a four-way lug wrench, a goat named Ramrod, and a ball-peen hammer.
The goat, the size of a Shetland pony, butted my Ford Bronco so hard it rocked on its springs. That was why I bought the hammer. I was not riding back with that thing unarmed.
"Couldn't find a pistol?" I asked my brother Sam. Sam, who has always been serious, said he could have found one, easy, in the endless stalls and milling throngs of people, if he had known I needed one--that, or a banjo, a croquet mallet, or a rhesus monkey. The goat just glared at me, kind of walleyed. "Ain't he a dandy?" said my little brother, Mark.If you've never been, "Trade Day" in Collinsville, AL is an experience. I've sold a couple of goats there before and bought more odds/ends junk that you can imagine. You can't get more entertainment for the money ($1 parking fee) than Trade Day.....ANYWHERE.... I took my "Yankee" in-laws years ago when they came to visit and they still talk about it like they got to visit the Land of Oz.
We've been running goats for a lot of years now. There is a big demand for goat meat. So to answer Bristoe's question....we want goats so we can sell goats. We sell some to folks starting or adding to herds, but most that we sell are directly to meat buyers (or folks who sell to them).
I can't give the OP any input on barns for goats. We run ours on pasture/wooded lots. If starting from scratch the 2x4" no climb woven fence would be the best fencing option with an electric stand off wire. I'd already fenced much of ours for cattle with barb wire so I had to make due......electric wire under the bottom strand and between the first/second strand of barb wire has worked well for us. Recently did a small pasture in high-tensile electric and really like it. Liked it so much I spent Saturday replacing some of the previously mentioned in between barb wire low tensile strands with high tensile.
Predators are a big deal. For us coyotes are a concern but roaming dogs are a bigger issue. Recently lost 8 to a pack of dogs. Electric generally keeps them out but if the fence is shorted it's open season.... I can't imagine dealing with lions.
