GOATWORLD.COM

Goatworld.com is an Education and Business Website established in the year 2000. It was created by Gary and Pamela Pfalzbot, both Disabled American Veterans, to provide a friendly, worldwide resource site where goat owners of all types could share information and tips regarding the care, raising and breeding of goats of all types. and uses. When GoatWorld.com was first created, it was one of only a few fledgling sites which pioneered the sharing of information between average people rather than institutions such as universities and/or government organizations, which were designed primarily for studying and recommending care for goats and sheep under one umbrella.

A virtual one-man army, Gary learned to code on his own and built GoatWorld.com from scratch, while simultaneously setting out learn everything he could about caring for these unique creatures. In the early years, Pamela (who did NOT learn coding) helped with the general content and managing of some of the features, such as Chat Rooms and Message Forums. Recently, she has been learning WordPress and Elementor as well as helping to redesign the look and feel of the site via new graphics and technology now available.

For Gary's part, he now uses a hybrid approach to keeping it updated, still coding by hand in many cases and using new technology and design tools in others. He is still the face and "voice" of GoatWorld to the one million plus visitors per day who come to use GoatWorld's features and resources to help them with their goats.

In the last 22 years, many like-minded sites have come and gone, often trying to imitate the original GoatWorld, created and still maintained by Gary and Pamela Pfalzbot at this writing, but none have been able to compare with the thousands of pages of information and relative content offered by the original site. Originally focusing on offering free information only, as well as writing many of the articles contained therein on his own, Gary has finally branched out into running his own GoatWorld Store, where customers can buy various minerals and custom mineral mixes for their goats and horses and is currently working on writing a book telling the Goatworld.com story. To his ongoing credit, university educators, private and government agencies and nutritional experts worldwide, still consult with Gary for his ideas and advice regarding goats and their care, breeding and nutritional needs, based on his hands-on experiences raising various ruminants throughout the years.

For years prior to 2000, resources for U.S. dairy goats raised for milk and cheese and sheep raised primarily (at that time) for fiber use were given the lion's share of attention by U.S. government and educational institutions such as veterinary schools, until Gary created GoatWorld.com and soon thereafter Goat911.com. Goat911.com was created by Gary out of necessity because of the sheer numbers of GoatWorld members who could not find knowledgeable veterinary help for their sick goats. Vets in most areas were used to treating mostly dairy goats or sheep. Because of nutritional differences between sheep and goats and ultimately between meat goats and dairy goats, he created an online information bridge between farmers, ranchers, pet goat owners and willing, experienced volunteers who gave up their time and advice for free to help with sick goats. This became extremely helpful and popular once meat goats and smaller pet goats such as Nigerian Dwarfs and Pygmy goats became more popular in the U.S. Overall, untold thousands of goats were helped and many saved from death thanks to the unselfish time and energy of Gary Pfalzbot and his Goat911 Capri-Medics at GoatWorld.com. Since its inception, Goat911.com has also been imitated and today, there are several services of a similar type at work throughout the USA as well as Goat Schools, Camps and Retreats following his information-sharing policies of "Learn~Teach~Care", part of the original GoatWorld.com motto.

While goats have served the common man around the world in many capacities for thousands of years, North American culture was slow to warm to the idea of raising goats for meat, fiber, pets, pack goats, and/or therapy animals until GoatWorld.com came along and encouraged ALL goats owners at the grassroots level, to share information. Eager to learn, GoatWorld members and visitors communicated weekly and sometimes daily in a friendly and safe atmosphere about the differences between the many kinds and sizes of goats, as well as many of their uses in general. Members learned how to hike and camp with robust, but extremely agile Saanen goats as pack animals, how to meet the varying nutritional needs of smaller pet Pygmy goats vs. the muscular South African Boer (raised mostly for meat) goats in comparison to the Spanish/Kiko meat goats - all with completely differing personalities and behavioral traits.

Based on their own life experiences with goats, Gary and Pamela continued to highlight the benefits of using goats for Fire Mitigation and brush and weed control. This awareness helped to foster entire new businesses, which are now widely popular and serve to keep areas around homes, businesses and government agencies in fire-prone areas (especially in California) clear of overgrown brush and foliage that the goats can safely eat. Unlike sheep, who are grazers and will eat the grass to the last blade if left unattended, goats are browsers and will usually leave some foliage intact rather than stripping everything down to the last leaf. They are also able to reach low-hanging branches, which is often beneficial to many lot and landowners, by giving them a better line of sight on their properties after the "trimming by the goats" is done.

In fact, that's how the Pfalzbots got into raising goats - their earth-bermed Missouri home was being threatened by the neighbor's overgrown Kudzu patch which they had planted years earlier and refused to control (an invasive weed). Gary had tried burning, cutting and using chemicals on the Kudzu to no avail and had raised goats in 4-H as a child. The kudzu was threatening to overtake their roof, so they opted to control its advance with goats, for which the Kudzu is a nutritious treat. The rest is history and their story is still ongoing thanks to Gary's daily devotion to keeping GoatWorld.com updated with articles and news. In 2022, he decided to finally give the 22-year-old website a much-needed facelift, which is currently in progress. For more info on their Kudzu Story, visit: http://www.goatworld.com.