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["Melody O." <melody AT crecon.com>]

Hi Denise,
Just a few questions down below:

At 09:16 PM 12/29/04 -0500, you wrote:
>Melody -- my advice would be to never have a PET goat, and certainly never
>attempt to have an intact billy PET goat.  Goats have to be goats and that
>includes butting, peeing on themselves, and other rather goat things.  I
>know this advice comes a bit late for you.  Goat babies are so cute and
>personable.  And it is hard to believe when they are sooooo little that they
>will get so big.

So is this behavior (play rearing & butting) limited to just billies, so
wethers don't exhibit this behavior?  Or is it goats in general?  Or is a
personality thing?

>I don't have much advice on "training".  I would never allow the goat to do
>those things to a person, period. 

If you don't allow that behavior in your goats, what do you do to deter
them?  I read in Carla Emery's book to smack a goat on the nose if he/she
jumps up on people (putting hooves on people much like a dog would put his
paws up on people).  We tried that but he was too dumb to understand the
cause & effect.  

 >Certainly his people need to not play in
>these ways with him.  

No.  We don't play back with him when he exhibits the behavior.  The kids
do show that they are scared (running away) which is something I have been
teaching them not to do.  Billy seems to think that then they want to run
and play with him then, which makes him even more excitable.

The problem is he sees us as one of the goats.  He doesn't seem to see us
as people.  He has another goat friend.  He treats us the same way he does
her.

>He needs to figure out he is a goat and you are people
>which may mean separating him from you although goats are hard to fence if
>they don't want to stay in. Get him another goat to play with.
>
>We have the same sort of policy toward roosters -- any who show any
>aggression at all to humans get eaten NOW not later.

And I feel the same way, and do the same thing with the roosters and any
aggressive animal who bullies or is so scared of people that they act
aggressively.  But Billy doesn't seem to be a bully nor aggressive.  He
seems like a stupid animal who wants to play.  I could be reading him all
wrong, but that is what I see.

I really like some of his attributes so I would like to have him breed our
nanny goat so as to pass those qualities on to the babies, and I do want to
have a billy in our herd, so I hate to kill him if I don't need to.  

With dogs I realize that there is an alpha dog that needs to be submissive
to his masters so that he and all the other dogs will be obedient and not
reek havoc with the farm.  I just wondered if goats have some quirk like
that....  I just haven't raised goats before, so I don't understand their
ways yet.

>That's my .02 for now.
>
>Denise

Best wishes,
Melody