Following through on my promise to diversify my surfing patterns, I made my first foray into the world of goat-related sites on the Web, and I'm happy to say that I was not disappointed.
You can research breeds, visit goat farms' Web sites and see pictures of specimens for sale, buy semen and artificial insemination equipment online, buy and sell goats online and get all the information you'd need to raise a healthy herd -- and then make cabrito or sweaters.
I was particularly pleased to come across a few good informational sites that are simple and thorough enough for folks who are thinking about starting a goat farm or for children who are thinking about doing a goat project for 4-H. One such site is the National Goat Handbook at
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Ag... The handbook has an alphabetized list of articles on a good variety of goat topics, including breeds, nutrition, milking and 4-H projects. An even less technical and better looking site is the Basic Goat Primer at
http://home.earthlink.net/~lureynolds. There are discussions on different breeds, the advantages of goats over other animals, a list of what goats are useful for and a short list of links. This would be good even for a high school student who's doing research on goats.
If you plan to do some in-depth Web surfing on your own, I also ran across a couple of sites with enormous lists of links. Goat Kingdom, a goat farm in Tennessee, has a site which includes more than 1,000 links. Its URL is
http://members.tripod.com/~duhgoatman/go... Run by "Duh Goat Man," this site also includes an article about Duh Goat Man's life at Goat Kingdom. It's a friendly read, and he sounds like a nice guy. More importantly, though, are the links, which are organized by category. He's even got a list of addresses of goat farms which don't have Web sites. The list of links changes, too, so you get a good variety when you visit the site more than once.
If you're looking to have a little fun while you're looking up goat info, I highly recommend Alpine Haus Goat Supply at
http://www.alpinehs.com/. Besides having adorable graphics, a goat crossword puzzle, a "goaty" screen saver and "goaty" post cards, Alpine Haus also has an online goat book, other goat books available, a list of breeders and a list of links. There's even an "emergency" link to
http://www.goatworld.com/911, a site which features the names and locations of veterinarians you can call in case of a goat emergency.
