Determining whether it is best to confine your livestock to a closed space, such as a camp or kraal, is crucial for their survival. 

Simply put, the wrong choice could mean your animals will not produce as they should or have the best nutrition possible.

 The worst-case scenario will be that such animals could die.

It has now become a norm to confine animals to a kraal at night, especially sheep and goats. 

This has been done over several decades, and the biggest motivation has been to protect such livestock against theft and lurking predators. 

This seems to have worked, judging from how popular such practice has become. 

It is, therefore, safe to conclude that confining animals to a kraal at night is a good practice.

There are, however, other considerations regarding such kraal confinement, such as when do you allow them to graze, what time would be best to let them forage on their own, and what time should you close up the kraal in the evening for the night?

The biggest question has, however, been if the confinement of small stock in a camp works best, compared to having free roaming animals. 

Multiple factors come into play here. 

Most importantly, it depends on the type of livestock you are dealing with. 

Generally, both sheep and goats can be confined, but with different results.

As it is best to have animals roam and forage freely on their own, the farmer must have a good reason to want to confine animals. 

Is it perhaps to protect against theft? 

Are predators a problem in the area, or is it for better management? 

All these are good reasons for confinement, but they would need honest answers from the farmer concerned before opting to confine such animals to smaller camps.

 Goats have over the years proven to be difficult to confine, compared to sheep. 

Confining sheep has been a lot easier, as they tend to move in smaller circles and mostly stick together. 

They, therefore, operate well in smaller camps, provided that there is sufficient grazing. 

Sheep are ferocious grazers and will clear an area out too fast.

 Therefore, the main consideration for confining sheep would be grazing.

With goats, it is a different tale altogether. 

Goats are born foragers and are made for the long haul. 

They take pride in going the distance – literally – in search of food. 

They have strong legs and great endurance for that. 

Also, they are picky eaters and would not just browse any shrub, tree or plant. 

This means they would move for hours in search of their preferred form of diet. 

 Such search for food takes goats to far places from their main kraal. 

Confining goats would, therefore, rob them of this privilege that they seem to enjoy and has become part of what they are. 

It is, therefore, generally not a good idea to confine goats, unless you have bigger sizes of land to do so.

From my experience, confining 20 to 25 goats in a 10-hectare camp works well, as long as there is enough for them to feed on. 

Also, this would mean you need to feed them additionally out of your pocket to supplement the few diet requirements that they are not able to attain in your camp. 

The golden rule here is also that you allow them some exercise, as that is important to take off the stress and make them browse with ease. 

Therefore, take them out of the camp at least once a week into the open. 

Let them roam for a while before bringing them back to the camp.

Study their feeding pattern carefully while they are in the camp. 

Look out for any sign of unwarranted weight loss, reluctance to feed or low lambing rates. 

If these signs come to the fore, release them from the closed space for a while.

- tjatindi@gmail.com