Gifts for the Goat Person in Your Life

Neptune, Antiva, and Jupiter.

Sometimes getting the right gift for the practical, hardworking goat farmer in your life can be a real pain. They don't enjoy typical lavish gifts. As someone with a lifestyle solely revolving around goats, here is my list of fairly universal ideas for just about anyone with goats (or other livestock!).

NOTE: I am not affiliated or sponsored by ANY of the links/references on this page. The specific products I recommend are simply just my personal preference. I highly encourage seeing if you can't source of any of these items from locally ran feed stores, local artists, or similar before you head out to the big box stores!

PS - If you are in the Tustin, Michigan area like I am, check out:

McBain Grain in McBain, MI. They have a lot of really high quality practical items listed here, mixed in with a great variety of both stylish & practical farm clothes, including a really great stock for women that actually fits really well.

Reed City Feed Supply in Reed City, MI. Not much of an apparel selection, but I have found literally the most complimented & adored handmade gifts there, including some really unique bird feeders. They also have a decent selection of the practical stuff!

Morgan Composting in Evart, MI. This place is a plant lover's dream, but also carries a lot of really practical items for daily use. They have homemade items like candles and soaps, really interesting locally made plant pots and decorations, and a wide selection of plant seeds, starters, and established house plants.

Stocking Stuffers

Smaller in size, smaller in price. Easily stuffed into whatever sock contraption you've got for the holidays.

• Thick, warm socks. Moisture proof is ideal to keep sweaty feet from freezing while going in & out of barns.

• Insulated leather gloves. These can be pretty tough to find in women's sizes, so as a women's baby-hand alternative, I find these Carhatt gloves sold at Tractor Supply actually fit fairly well in exchange for a lot of durability (they tend to get holes and rip fairly quickly).

• Needles

  • Aluminum Hub tends to be better quality.

  • I prefer the 18g 1in size for most on-farm uses.

• Luer Lock Syringes

  • I use 3cc the most, but 6cc and 12cc is very useful as well.

• Copper Bolus Pack

• Probiotics

  • Paste or powder - both are good.

• Fortified Vitamin B Packets or Injectable

• Bag Balm / Dynamint

• Goat treats / Fig newtons / Animal crackers

Gifts up to $100

Generally useful things that absolutely double as a full-fledged gift on their own.

• Assorted Food-Grade Buckets.

  • 5gal, grain, heated, 1gal..... seriously - just a goat bucket with a bunch of actually useful things stuffed inside of it? 100x better than a stocking, and doesn't typically require wrapping (double win).

• Heated Buckets.

  • Briefly mentioned above, but deserve it's own space. No one I know ever owns enough heated drinking buckets. I keep a variety of 5 gallon and 25 gallon buckets in each pen. Does require electricity near their barn, or the use of lots of extension cords (which I use), so you could pair this really well with an safe outdoor extension cord. This is also even useful for folks in the south - it's rare to get snow, but as we are seeing right now in their historic January ice storm, it is better to have than not.

• Electric wire spools for tying up T-posts or fence repair.

  • I prefer to get the cheapest spools available at my local farm store; usually 16 gauge wire. These are a versatile, more durable version of tying everything together with baler twine. I tie my T posts to the fence with this wire, fix holes or gaps in the fence by weaving this wire through, I can use it to hang up objects around the barn as needed; there's so many uses.

• Plastic boot covers for biosecurity.

  • Taller the better.

• Handy gallon jugs of:

  • Chlorohexadine

  • Iodine

  • Teat Dip

  • Red Cell

  • Kaolin Pectin

• Upside down spray bottles.

• Quality handtools:

  • Pitchforks (I prefer 4 tine curved with a wooden handle)

  • Clay Shovels

  • Grain Shovels

  • T Post Pounder

• Find a really good picture of their goats. It doesn't have to be their "favorite". Just pick one you like. If they have goats, you know they have 40k photos of them everywhere you can look. Now, see if a local business (or if none available, just about every large chain store offers these) is able to create any of these with it:

  • Large thermos or to-go coffee mugs. It's good to make sure these are spill-proof, and a way to hook it onto jeans/a coat is great. You can add a random clevis to it if you need to.

  • Canvas prints

  • If you have the time to do a calendar for the upcoming year, that would really be an 11/10 gift!

  • Cozy throw blanket

  • Decent quality T Shirt / Hoodie / Sweater

• Elevated waterproof dog beds.

  • I can't recommend these ones enough. I have around 10 right now in the pasture, and they are regularly fought over. I may need 2 of these for every goat.

• DIY clay paw/hoof-print creation kits.

• Dog costumes, little hats.

• A good quality heat lamp. Not the cheap metal kind that you can find at most any farm store - those are very large fire dangers. In fact, all heat lamps are, but I can't deny how handy they can be in a lot of different situations. So - I recommend getting the new Premier1 Heat Lamps over anything else available.

For the Milkers / Dairies

These are suggestions specific to those that milk their herd.

• Good 1 gallon glass jars. Preferably wide-mouth.

• A pack of half gallon glass Ball jars.

• Milk machine extra parts.

  • This highly depends on what type of milk machine they have. I recommend figuring out what brand they have, then going directly to that brand's website.

  • An extra set of inflations. These come in different sizes, so make sure you are picking a size compatible with their goats.

  • If their milk machine has the built-in option for it, milk filters.

  • Silicone hose. Really any length (more the better!), but make sure the width matches the rest of their setup.

• If they make cheese as well, try gifting some rennet! It's always needed. Or, you can try some different cheese cultures. It's a great way to encourage someone to branch out a bit.

What Not To Gift:

Based on my personal experiences of receiving an average of 3 of each of these items every single holiday.

• Those cheap T-shirts from Tractor Supply.

  • You know the ones. I know you do. They're scratchy. They shrink a lot. They're up by the front of the store and sold very cheaply. Maybe it's just my personal preference, but I end up with multiples of the same shirt every year, and they hold up terribly and are uncomfortable. It also just feels like a cheap low-effort gift.

• More goats.

  • Seriously. This is just a great general rule. Never, ever gift anyone a live creature without communicating with them directly about it. Not in a round-about, guessing game, passive type of way. Really have a clear, direct conversation about it. If you really want to gift someone goats, talk to them a month or so prior and figure out exactly what they are looking for (& if they even ARE looking for anything), let them pick the animal, and let them come with you to pick up the animal (even if you are also a knowledgeable goat person, don't trust your breeder/practices preferences to perfectly match theirs. What they might back out of after seeing, you might not bat an eyelash at).

• If they show, cheese boards. I have so many of them I don't even know what to do with them. We win these at shows,

• Those absolutely adorable but very cheap sock sets. At least for me, they're just so uncomfortable I absolutely never use them and they end up donated.