Goat Behaviors and Human Interaction

Put your dukes up, goat…

Me: Let's settle this like real men, Zircon
Zircon: Baah. Meet me at the feed store at 4, fool.

That’s what it feels like sometimes with the goats, especially the bucks. They have a knack for being… well, goats. The does are just lovely; even if they get a bit mischievous, they hardly test my patience. Thankfully, it’s the does (and the herd queen in particular) who call the shots. If I want anything done, then I’ll call in Trouble, the main doe in hood. Her actions determine the behavior of the rest of the larger herd (which we call Herd A, or “Trouble’s goats”). She did get that name for a reason, however, so let’s chat about goat behaviors and human interaction – or how we see it, anyway.

It’s not you, It’s me.

I used to think it was just me, so I did a lot of investigating, trying to understand why I get so exasperated with them. Do I misunderstand them? Do they misunderstand me? Are there reasons like does in heat, competition for space and food, or even the direction of the wind? Turns out, it’s all of the above, and it’s completely normal. Neighbors and friends who farm with larger goats, and even sheep, have shared how many times they felt like settling the score right then and there, or tackling the buck and wrestling him to the ground for a few minutes.

Some of these men, burly fellows, claim to have been randomly butted and sent rolling across the kraal floor by a buck who decided, on a whim, that he was the main man. Laughing and nodding in agreement, I follow the tale being told. One guy said he couldn’t think of anything other than punching the buck and going into a 1940s-style boxing match with it. Unfortunately, you’ll always lose that one and end up with a broken finger or wrist—and a buck that thinks it’s all a game.

So, with the funny stuff being said, and setting the tone for the post, let us not digress any further. Take heed, I am not a vet, psychologist or goat whisperer. This is just what we learnt from the last five or six years or so of keeping goats (and sheep).

Goat Behavior

What we expect from them and what they actually are don’t always go hand in hand. It goes without saying that it makes sense, in the medium to long term, to work with animals you feel a connection with. Alexia always loved goats; she knew what to expect from them and thus helped me understand them much better than I could have on my own. Each animal behaves in a certain way because of its nature, origin, and what it (or its ancestors) had to do to survive in the wild. Their size, height, legs, horns, colors, and behaviors form a complete machine that operates within a larger environment. When we bring them in, overnight them in kraals, and feed them on schedules with specific diets, we are modifying that machine quite a bit.

Herds are Social

Goats have strong herding instincts and rely entirely on social hierarchies that they, themselves, create over the long term. If you keep goats, you’ve probably noticed this when adding new members, removing others, or introducing outside kids. I take issue with folks who anthropomorphize animal behavior and then make judgments based on that. It’s imperative to understand the animal and realize that not every behavior that seems human has the same explanation. Bullying in goats is not like it is with humans; it’s more akin to how chickens behave. It’s not uncommon to see bullying of different goats in the herd for a few weeks or even months as they settle in and determine the pecking order. This usually resolves itself within that time frame, provided you don’t have other serious problems in your system.

Browsers & Explorers

Goats are also foragers, browsers and curious. They are natural explorers and do not graze as sheep do. A goat, for lack of a better phrase, knows how to self-medicate. This instinctual drive to explore areas with different food sources and their natural curiosity cause them to move around a lot. It’s a bonus for those of us who appreciate animals that assist with regeneration, permaculture, and soil-building. It means they snack a bit and move on without clearing and destroying the area they happen to be in that day. Browsers take a bit from each bush, a tuft of grass, and then move on; grazers put their heads down and clean up from the bottom, virtually removing everything in its first growth stages. Where are we going with this? The goat’s escape mechanism is a direct result of this behavior. If they can find a way out of an enclosure, they will seize the opportunity without hesitation. Understanding their needs and desires helps us comprehend where they want to go when they escape and even why they escape so often.

Body Language and Vocalisations

Goats exhibit obvious and some not-so-obvious signs and sounds, directly related to behavior. Getting to know the sounds and signs of your goats will go a long way in understanding them better.

Head Butting

Head-butting is a prime example of body language with multiple meanings. Young bucks often butt heads as a form of play, which is nature’s way of preparing them for the challenges of the real world. During head-butting, they gain confidence, release some frustration, and start measuring each other’s strength. Larger, older bucks, and even does, also engage in head-butting; sometimes for play and sometimes to establish social hierarchy. This behavior largely depends on your setup. Mature bucks can and probably will injure each other if kept in smaller areas, especially if the scent of a doe in heat lingers in the air. Here, logic prevails, and it is up to you to either appreciate and understand the behavior or find ways to mitigate it.

Raised Hair/Hackles, Foot Stomping and Standing on hind legs

I am so glad that I haven’t experienced this, yet. Some of our clients, friends and neighbours did, however. The raising of hair on the back, as well as foot stomping, are related to negative emotions that should be investigated and dealt with.

The raised hair on the back is directly associated with anger, fear and a willingness to fight or flee. As with all animals, if it cannot flee, it will fight and we can’t keep this against them. They may act this way because of a misunderstanding, a predator animal in the vicinity or someone handling them in a way they do not like. It’s important to identify this, correct it, and resume a slow and steady, careful social bonding regimen.

Foot stomping occurs more often as a warning, and may not always be accompanied with raised hair. A goat may feel completely threatened, and in control, and express his warning or irritation with foot stomping. The same rules apply, as above. Careful investigation and correction.

Tails and Ears

Tail and ear movements are one of my favourite, satisfying signs that a goat can broadcast. I think it is because we associate them with the way dogs do it, which is mostly not comparable, but it feels that way; guests usually go bezerk over goats wagging tails. What I have learnt, is that I can use these bahviors as a sign of when to do things like rewarding, standing back, training or giving in. They are like little green lights for hardening the behaviors you want to reinforce [for me, anyway].

Tails:

• Wagging expresses a burst of excitement and/or social bonding
• Upwards is a sign of interest, awareness and excitement
• Downwards/hanging shows some, or quite a bit of fear, or submission

Ears:

• Forward ears show focus and attention on something, and I see this often when birds of prey are around, or when we approach with greens from the kitchen.
• Backward ears demonstrate fear, discomfort or anger with a situation. I use this to study and observe, and to identify it without intervening or getting their attention.
• Floppy, dangling ears are synonymous with its meaning. Relaxed, care-free, que sera sera.

Chew, Bump, Lick, Nibble & Bleat

Trying to combine all of these behaviors into a single section is easy, as they all relate to communication and attention seeking behaviors. Here is what I have gathered from personal experience, and the experiences of other goat breeders.

Pushing and Nibbling (and chewing)

Whether you’re in the kraal to feed or clean up, you will often notice them approaching you from your blind spot to bump, sniff or nibble on you. Trouble, as hardcore as she tries to appear, will often just walk up to me while I rake up, and stand there for ages. Occasionally, she will start nibbling on my pants or gumboots, or start licking my legs. This is why we can’t have nice clothing and always go to town with holes in our trousers…

They can do this for attention, to beg for snacks, to submit to your position as a higher-up or in the case of our dwarf goat bucks, a means of trying to pick a little fight. Licking is a major behavior showing affection, but goats are quite fond of exploring textures (as their browsing depends on it), so if they like the feel of your rough elbows or jeans, they will lick them.

Ruminants bring up cud, to chew for hours after their last feeding. This is normal, and it’s how they work. The only thing worth noticing is if they are doing it in a gentle, relaxed and calm way. Sitting on the ground in the sun, sometimes eyes half closed, chewing as if there are no taxes to pay, is a sure sign of peaceful vibes and healthy digestion.

Bleating and Verbalisations

Bleating, the sound a goat makes, is the most diverse of the lot. This is the most interesting one to me as well, since you can actually start to hear goat-speak after a few years. While every bleat sounds more or less the same, they have slightly different (dare I say) intonations and inflections that vary from naughty to fearful.

You will notice a specific little bleat, that causes a kid to run to it’s mother; another specific little bleat will cause the kid to stay away from her. There are bleats that go “I am lost, help”, and a single echo from the herd “We are here”, that cause them regroup within seconds. There are bleats that simply beg you for snacks whenever you carry anything resembling a bucket or bag, and there are bleats that say “I just touched the electric fence, someone’s gonna pay”.

One of my favourite bleats, is one that causes the Border Collie’s to bark and run to our farm entrance. Somehow, only the dogs know this bleat, which means “Strangers!”. One other interesting one is a bleat that announces the arrival of known family members from another side of the farm – paired with upward ears in their direction. Our goats are basically human and predator radars.

Bucks have make of the funniest sounds when does are in heat, and when they are trying to garner attention and be the main dude on the block. They can snort, sniff, make laughing noises and whine. At night, in the dark, I bet it sound spooky to someone who are not aware of them. To us, it’s quite funny to wake up at 2AM, and hear that sound, akin to a schoolboy wanting a drum-set, that he isn’t allowed to get.

Human Understanding, Interaction and Managing Emotions

It is extremely normal for us to get as frustrated, angry and sometimes confused at our animal behavior. Like a barking dog, there’s always a reason, a precursor and a reaction that leads to it – but from our point of view it’s annoying. We think that we know them, understand them and do all the right things (based on our mental models¹), but if they are behaving in a negative way, we have to stand back and say “Hey, let’s see why and fix that, instead”. Our understanding of what we experience, is based on our previous successes and failures, which cements our understanding into a fixed way; closing our minds to outside opinions, changes and different points of view. Mental models are often the cause of problems, like the captain of a ship steering into a hurricane because he survived it before. To keep animals, we have to be many things. We have to be vets and ethologists².

Space, Isolation, Separation

Goats are weird. Sometimes they need to be physically distanced from others, and sometimes they need to be kept together. Permaculture demands a mindset of observation, and making slow, iterative changes – which helped us a lot with managing this particular issue in goats.

It’s probably obvious that in nature, herds are formed with a structure of dominant and submissive animals. If we’re going to be keeping animals in confined areas, we need to respect this natural separation, and commit to it. Goats are happily kept in anything from a small yard to large farms, and the only thing that matters here is the number of animals per, say, square meter. Multiple bucks in a confined space will end up hurting each other, and should be isolated. In most cases, small space keepers will keep one or even, zero bucks, and allow bring them in closer to the does when needed. Additional bucks, born in the herd, are castrated or sold of to avoid negative interactions between them later (and to avoid inbreeding). On larger spaces of a few hectares or more, bucks can roam together, happily [until they get too close to does on heat]. It’s a matter of applying common sense, and considering their natural drive to be the dominant, competitive animal in the group. Cage matches are a bad idea.

On the other hand, there’s the opposite of separation. They are herd animals and thus, should not be separated completely. If you keep your buck separate, then make sure he has company in the form of a wether, or with other bucks if you find your bucks to be able to do that. We recently got our numbers and bloodlines up to a point where we decided to split our herd into two (and soon three). There is still only one buck here, if we ignore the adolescent and not-yet-mature kid bucks that run around awaiting selling or castration. As mentioned before, Trouble established her dominance as a herd queen in the first year of her life [she is almost six years old now] and we have observed her loyal underlings for years. The herds are now split into two, with Trouble as the queen in Herd A, and Lana (her daughter) the queen of Herd B.

I find that very few does show this drive to rule, but when they do, you have it made. If we need them to browse a specific area (for instance where we have a lot of invasive trees), we lead her there by steering her slowly (using goat flight zones). The rest will follow, and orbit her location in a loose 20-40 meter circle. She will return when she had enough, or feel threatened by something, and the rest will follow. It’s a strange, interesting and wonderful thing to observe. My experience with sheep were just about the opposite of everything goat, in this regard.

The amount of goats to keep in a herd can vary between 3 and 30, but we find a golden area to be between 8 and 12 – determined by the queen and her peasants, not us. We have some guides on this, for newcomers to the goat world. For the bucks, we always only keep one, and he lived with the herds _most_ of the time, with separation only when we want to control a weird behavior or breeding. The majority of his time is spent with the herd, and they will only allow him to breed when they feel it’s OK. We observe peace and harmony almost all the time, but we always keep an eye peeled for a shift in the matrix.

A note on training…

Being intelligent creatures, they are obviously very well skilled in the art of manipulation and communication, even with us humans. They are trainable, and habit forming to the point where it can almost be annoying. Getting the most out of your goats can be done by applying scheduled, standard, pleasant interactions with them. Whether you breed them as pets, meaters or resource managers on your land, having love and respect for them from day 1 to the end yields both a great life for them, and easy management for you.

One example is breeding your goats to be milkers. Most goats, not used to it, will not allow someone to just go and grab their belly and rub an udder. Raising goats with this goal in mind, is the easiest way to achieve it. By gently handling a kid from young age, and touching the udder area, makes for a goat that will stand there, expecting to be milked. Training a wild’ish acting goat to milk it, takes a lot of patience, but can be done.

Another example of training, is useful to those with larger yards or land. We do not have any fences on our property of almost 100 hectares. It is an arid place, and to regenerative graze it, we need the goats to move around all the time. They can sometimes disappear for hours, which feels terrible at first.
The trick we employed is to teach them that upon their return, they get some snacks for it. It is imperative that you do this at exactly the same time everyday, and make sure to give them the snack. We use crushed corn/mielies mixed with some of their usual lamb & ewe pellets. Do not overfeed mielies/corn³!
This generally starts working for us within 2-3 weeks, and even for the larger species we have (our Cape Lob Ear, indigenous veld goats⁴).

Just use what you know about them, their behavior and weaknesses, and train into that. They are smart, smart enough to know when we have an electric fence failure – be careful what you start doing habitually. I use a flashing light to indicate fence operation to us at night; the goats now also use this to know when it is off. This is training, albeit not the kind I wanted.

Feeding Time Behaviors

Our herds are let out, to browse, almost daily. They have come to expect this, but won’t demand it for some reason. Opening a gate, and letting them free into the veld is never a case of them storming out. They exit the enclosure slowly, observing, making sure we’re not hiding any buckets of lucerne pellets before they slowly drift off into the veld. As I mentioned, when they return we give everyone (including non grazing herds) their scheduled dose of pellets and roughage [oat hay].

The ones that came back from a few hour long browsing, are calm and slow. The pellets are soon devoured, accompanied by some agitated nudging between them to see who can eat the most. Those who get fed once a day, and did not go out for a romp, will act differently. One aspect of frustration for me, is their competitive resource guarding around food. It doesn’t matter how fat they are, how large a bale I put down, how many times I feed them or if give them the best of the best, it happens.

The bucks and does will often moan, nudge and sweep others away from the food to try and keep that pile all to himself. In our cape lob ear kraal, the buck demands his own pile, and this is where I have learnt to put down multiple feeding areas. Pellets, the most precious resource, is best split into 2 or 3 or even more piles or feeders, and gives them all a fair chance at grouping into socially-equal groups to feed. The kids will either feed under the protection of their nanny, or with other kids. I also split the oat hay into two heaps; by the time they have finished the pellets, the hay is just a rumination habit, something to keep the gut healthy and filled with ever moving fiber.

We had some difficult periods, I suppose we are to blame, where many factors just contribute to general tension in the kraals. At the times, we do a bit of supervised feeding. One case that comes to mind, is a specific doe that acts sorry for herself, and submissive (not for any medical reason, but as she didn’t start asserting herself until a year later) and if we didn’t stand next to her, she would not be allowed any food by the others in that herd. Eventually, as humans we both get fed-up with playing body guard, and realise that they need to sort out their own social order. We let them be, and after a few days of eating very little, she realised that it was time to stand up for herself against the other does – and she is doing good now, with an almost arrogant little attitude, might I add.

Goat Behaviors and Human Interaction

We are human, and we have emotions that are only part of being human. We get angry at things the goats do out of pure instinct or their current natural circumstances. We laugh at things that seem funny to us, but is very frustrating for them (like a buck that really needs that doe to agree with his ideas). It’s normal, and fine to be human, and to get angry and frustrated. It is not normal to let these emotions control you, affect your health or how you handle your animals. This is the time to learn more about them, understand their instincts and know that their behaviors are not personal.

Read books, watch videos and ask people. Pride has no place in animal husbandry. The sooner we all realise that animals are complicated creatures that keep evolving and changing, the easier it will be. There are no experts, just people who know a lot about their specific breeds, in their specific climate, location, and setup. There are so much we need to deal with, it can become overwhelming and stressful. Medical conditions, pain, stress, mortalities, sudden freezing weather and a bunch of people running in circles trying to get control over the situation… what the goats must think. Take it easy, one step at a time. Solve one issue at a time, tackling the most important ones first. Remember that you’re human. Take some emotion out of it, and apply logic – this will help you make the right call, in almost every situation.

On the note of improvement, to ourselves, there’s also something to be said about using your best human feature… your brain to improve the system you have.

Pretend you’re one of the goats, and think about some things:

• Think about their enclosures, and see it from their point of view.
• Does anything look worth fighting over, if you were a goat? Obstruct the view to it.
• Is the water fresh, or weird smelling? Would you enjoy it, if you were a goat? 🤔
• If you’re able to constantly roam, would this affect you? What else can be done to distract you from it?
• Can you smell the males/females, and the only thing between you is a thin piece of mesh fence? How would you exploit it. 🤔
• Do the humans give you food _every single time_ they come around? It thus makes sense to make a noise every time you see them.
• Does the strange man coming here for compost, always carry a scary stick? Perhaps anyone with a stick is an enemy? 🤔

I hope this has been helpful. Putting down my thoughts and turning them into an article took quite some time. I deliberated over writing it at all, and eventually I did, thinking it would be a short 8 paragraph post. Let me know what you think in the comments, and remember, don’t let the “experts” drive you. Take advice, apply your common sense, learn, expand, improve, yield when you’re wrong and share alike.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_model ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethology ↩︎
3. https://www.msdvetmanual.com/digestive-system/diseases-of-the-ruminant-forestomach/grain-overload-in-ruminants ↩︎
4. https://indigenousveldgoats.co.za/ ↩︎