They do not need much. They are, however, entirely unreasonable about rain.
Cattle will stand in weather. Goats will not. This is the first thing that surprises people coming to goats from other livestock, and it is the thing most likely to cost you an animal in a wet coastal winter.
The good news is that goats do not need much. What they need is specific, cheap and unglamorous, and once it is in place you can largely stop thinking about it.
A three-sided shelter, open to the north or east so it faces away from the prevailing south-westerlies, dry underfoot, and close enough that a goat anywhere in the paddock can reach it at a trot. That is the whole specification.
It does not need to be large. A rule of thumb is around one and a half to two square metres of floor per adult goat — enough that the lowest-ranked animal is not left standing in the rain because the others have taken the dry corner. If you are keeping a small number of goats, err generous; the difference in cost is trivial.
It does not need to be beautiful either. A run of corrugated iron on a timber frame, a calf shelter, a converted shipping crate, the lean-to end of an existing shed — all fine. What matters is that the roof does not leak, the floor stays dry, and the open side is not pointing into the weather.
A goat's coat is not built for sustained rain the way a Highland's is. It wets through rather than shedding water, and a wet goat in wind loses heat fast. Kids are worse again — they have very little reserve and they chill within hours rather than days.
The second problem is underfoot. Damp bedding softens hoof horn, and soft horn plus trapped manure is the recipe for foot rot and scald. A goat standing in a wet shelter is arguably worse off than one standing in a clean paddock.
So: bedding that is genuinely dry, topped up rather than left, and cleaned out properly a couple of times a year. Straw, old hay, wood shavings — whatever you can get. A shelter floor raised slightly above the surrounding ground, or laid over a pad of gravel, saves you most of this problem permanently.
Just as important through a Victorian summer, and more often overlooked because nothing dramatic happens on the first hot day. Trees are ideal — they move shade through the day and they are cooler than iron. The same three-sided shelter works if you have no trees, though it can be unpleasantly hot inside a small iron box at two in the afternoon, so height and airflow help.
Shade needs to be big enough for every goat at once. Goats will crowd into the one shaded patch and the bottom of the pecking order ends up out in it.
Goats want to be up on something. A stump, a cable spool, a stack of pallets, a low platform. It is not decoration — it keeps them occupied, it wears hooves down a little, and a goat with something to climb on is a goat not working out how to get through your fence.
One rule: keep everything climbable well away from the boundary. A goat will use a water trough, a log or a feeder as a launch pad without any apparent planning. Two metres clear of the fence line is a reasonable habit, and it applies to things you did not think of as climbable, like a mound of soil or a fallen branch.
Plan for one small yard or pen you can shut a single goat into, with its own water and its own shelter. You will need it sooner than you expect: a new arrival that should be kept apart for a few weeks, a sick animal, a doe kidding, a buck who needs to be somewhere else entirely, or a goat on a medication that means you need to know exactly what it has eaten.
It should be within sight of the others. Goats are herd animals and an isolated goat that cannot see its companions will spend its energy trying to get back to them rather than resting, which defeats the purpose.
Wind matters more than temperature. A still five degrees is nothing to a healthy goat; five degrees with a wet south-westerly across an open paddock is a different proposition. If your shelter is exposed on the weather side, a length of windbreak fabric, a hedge or a row of planted shelter trees will do more for the animals than another sheet of roofing iron.
Stand in the paddock during the worst weather your place gets, somewhere in the middle, and ask two questions. Can a goat get from here to somewhere dry within thirty seconds? Is that dry place actually dry, or is it just roofed?
If both answers are yes, your shelter is adequate. Everything past that is for your benefit rather than theirs, which is fine — just do not mistake it for what the goats needed.