Joel Salatin explains why goats get sick after five years of ownership. Owners become attached and manage them closely, but the goats have already over-grazed their habitat. They shift from browsing to intensive grazing on overly rich vegetation, which Salatin compares to feeding them candy bars, causing parasites, mastitis, hoof disorders, and digestive problems.
And so what happens at about 5 years, you learn to like your goats, you learn to control them and, you know, and enjoy them, but they've now eaten themselves out of their habitat. And then you turn the goats from a browser into a grazer. And when that happens, now you start with parasites, retained placentas, mastitis, you know, hoof problems, all sorts of digestive health and skeletal problems because their feed is too rich. It's like they're on candy bars all the time. And so that's, that's the conundrum with goats, is that they eat themselves out of their habitat right, right when you start to like them.
If I had to start my Homestead all over again, it could only pick one animal… 
