Well we went to a farm to buy a rabbit buck, and came home with not only the rabbit but 4 Nigerian dwarf goats: a mother and her 4 month old son (she could be bred since she was still in with the buck after she gave birth) and two little unrelated babies, a 10 wk doeling and a 11 wk old buck. the problem (if you want to call it that, and I don't.) is that they all have horns, and the goats we already have do not.
we now have 8 goats effectively split into pairs. two inseparable babies with horns, a possibly pregnant mom and her young son with severe mommy issues. both with horns, Two adult (possibly bred)lamancha does without horns and small for their age, and the two 12 wk babies we are buying from Deb, both without horns. we decided to whether and keep the boys because we figured we are gonna need the whethers for keeping isolated goats company as we try to figure out how to mix all these goats into two herds.
Between the babies at Deborah's, the lamancha does being boarded at another farm, and these new four being on our property we have goats spread across Illinois lol .we are planning on moving all goats to the same farm (awaiting test results on the four horned goats first of course).
Ok sooo....my questions for you fine folks is 1) could babies with horns be mixed with babies without? and if so at what age does the head butting get serious?
2} Can we safely put babies in with unrelated adults?
any tips or tricks for introducing goats to new goats?
Replies
The thing about having horned and non-horned together is that you're just counting on being lucky enough to not have anything bad happen. Yes, it is all about having the right personalities together, and who can guarantee that you will be lucky enough to get the right personalities. Also, whenever goats are separated for kidding or clipped or if anything changes, they feel the need to re-establish dominance, so there is more head butting. When I had horned goats with my goats many years ago, whenever they would butt heads, the one without horns would go staggering backwards. It reminded me of the cartoons where someone gets hit on the head and they have stars spinning around above them. Butting heads with horns is more likely to result in death. I also have horned sheep, and the only reason I don't mind them is because they curl around, so they are only capable of stabbing someone or getting stuck in a fence when they are under six months old, but they are also really mellow then too, because the testosterone has not kicked in yet. I know people who have had horned rams kill each other. I have also had a ram lamb rip off a horn, which was really scary, and I had another ram lamb get his head stuck in a fence because of his horns over and over again, and one day a coyote found him before we did.
I have 2 pens of does....pen 1 has 2 does that have horns but have aggressive personalities (toward other goats only not people) and their babies from this year and a doeling with horns (daughter of one). the senior does both think they are the queen and will throw their heads around when its feeding time. they make a little sound while doing it that seems to mean Hey get out of my space. pen 2 has the quieter does both horned and non horned. they will do the same thing...occasionally they will butt heads but they use the part of the head below the horn area( forehead area). sometimes at feeding time they are running around so much they trip over their babies but nobody is worse for wear. We notice that the does stay within family groups within the pen. mothers and daughters have their own little cliques. the only time we notice a problem is when we introduce a new goat into the established herd....then there will be butting and shoving. But nothing so serious that we worry about injury.
Rose im not even slightly worried about the goats hurting each other, my concern is the horned goats will have the advantage in a contest and I dont want the non horned ones to be bullied and stressed. do you see any of that in your herd? im guessing the boss of your herd has horns?
Rachel the electric fence on the outside of the field fence should work nicely ...thank you.
If you can choose your fencing, that's how I would address predators (and those dogs) using electric fencing (usually in addition to farm fencing) helps keep predators away. One strand low to the ground, and one high, at the top, or just above. The electric can be used externally on the fence line, keeping predators away when they start sniffing around.
I have horned and non horned goats mixed in my herd. I haven't had any problems related to the horns. I think it has more to do with personality. I have my 2 more aggressive does together with their babies. the other pen contains the more docile does with and without horns. the only time there is any head butting is at feed time. they don't even really butt each other just throw their heads in the general direction of the other goat and one will back off. maybe im just lucky but I really think its the personalities that matter.
oh no at no point will we be mixing horned and non horned (I was just curious if I could mix the super young ones safely), I personally love the horns and wouldn't even want to raise goats if they weren't going to have horns. Having said that I understand that if we don't disbud some goats we will be missing out on the 4h and show markets. As of right now MY plan is to phase out the non horned goats completely once we start producing babies of our own. but, as usual I'm sure the wife has other ideas and she always wins.
Deborah I wasn't actually aware it could take months for test results to be accurate (I'm sure Amy knows and will roll her eyes in disgust when I bring it up for apparently not listening again. lol)
So we will keep all goats separate until tests are clean and that will give the babies time to not be babies anymore.
Rachel Whetzel we actually banded both of the boys as soon as we got them home, we do not have the setup to have a buck on our property right now so any boys staying must be fixed.
So next question......the farm we are going to take some of our goats to has a family with two dogs living there, the family will not be caring for the goats at all, and the dogs (when out of the kennel) cannot be trusted. it is a 20 min drive from our home and we will drive there very day after work and on weekends to care for the goats. a guard dog wont work in this situation and a guard lama is too big to get in the barn/shelter.
any ideas on how to handle predators in this situation?
Here's a picture:
http://s182.photobucket.com/user/ErisFae/media/horns1-1.jpg.html
Here's a post about a farm using them
http://asliliessewing.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-beginning-of-spring-...
and this cow's owners are using KONGS!!
http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb471/PBEljay/P5020058.jpg
I *sounds* like you might have the ability to maintain two separate herds. If you do, I think that's what I would try. I have seen some pretty cool inventions for horned goats. One of them being tennis balls put on the tops of the horns. I still wouldn't put them in with non horned goats, but at least you'd be protecting your horned herd from harming each other accidentally! :)
It is a bad idea to have horned and non-horned goats together because the horned definitely know they have the advantage, which can result in injury or death. When I was new and naive, someone gave me two horned goats, and after three months I gave them back because I was genuinely afraid they were going to kill my other goats. The day that a horned goat hooked his horns under the belly of a pregnant doe and lifted her off the ground was it! I immediately contacted the person who gave them to me and said I needed to return them.
I really applaud the fact that you are having these goats tested for disease. That is a really good thing. Unfortunately, if they came from an untested herd, you won't really know that they are disease free after a single test. If they were recently exposed, they may take months to sero-convert, which means they have the disease and can give it to other goats, even though the antibodies are not showing up in their blood yet. Also, testing kids that have not been weaned for at least six months is a waste of money as you could get a false positive or a false negative.
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