"The Poor Man's Cow"
Jeff Culbreath offers us some GOAT RUMINATIONS (pun intended), among them:

Far from the devilish caricature which originated in Judaism, this image is that of "the poor man's cow" - an icon of simplicity, humility, contentedness, and earthiness. While cows remind me of cowboys, goats remind me of children, women, and old people. A goat is a family animal that can be handled with relative ease. You haven't really lived until you've seen a three-year old girl riding on a goat.

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Goats are common in poor rural areas where good pasture is scarce. When you hear city people disparage rural folk, you'll often hear insulting references to goats. In the mind of the sophisticated urbanist, keeping goats marks one as a third-world peasant at best - or an American backwoods hick at worst. I wear this as a badge of honor.

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Even more than cows, among goats the bulls are gloriously masculine and the does are blessedly feminine. Keeping one's children around goats serves as a practical defense against modern theories of androgyny.

My wife and I have often thought that when we do finally get our piece of land, it is goats that we will raise. We've been cut off from the land for too many generations to feel comfortable with cows. Perhaps we'll start with goats an our kids and their kids can move on to cows.