ABSTRACT: Many people are feeling the pinch' at the moment and backyard pets with a purpose, such as goats, are becoming more popular. Even in small animal practice, it is helpful to understand goat care. This article covers the key aspects of caprine husbandry, behaviour, diet, reproduction, legislation and welfare.
Domestic goats originate from Asia and Europe. Remnants date back 10,000 years, which makes them amongst the earliest animals domesticated by man.
Goats were kept for milk, meat, dung (used as fuel), bones, hair, and sinew (used for clothing, building, and tools), hide (used for water/wine bottles and parchment), intestine (used for the surgical suture material ‘catgut’ and musical instrument strings) and horn (used to make spoons). Goats were also used for driving and packing.
Given the opportunity, they readily become feral, rather like the cat. The current world population is approximately 800 million, increasing annually, and includes 300 breeds.
This article – a resume of goat husbandry – is intended for veterinary nurses in practice to help them communicate with new goat owners.
Goat terminology
• Relating to or resembling goats = caprine
• Females = does or nannies
• Intact males = bucks or billies
• Castrated males = wethers
• Offspring = kids.
Basic facts
Goats naturally have two horns (or more), made of living bone (Figure 1). They are ruminants (four-chambered stomach), have hooves (ungulates), horizontal slit-shaped pupils, dark irises, and the udders of females bear two teats. Most goats have beards, many have wattles (dangling by the neck) and their average life expectancy is 15 years.
Figure 1: Goats naturally have two horns
Behaviour
Goats are usually docile but will charge and head-butt to combat intruders and establish a hierarchy (pecking order). Goats don’t feed side-by-side but ‘pine’ if kept alone. They are curious about humans, easily trained to walk on collars and leads and don’t usually bite or kick.
Goats are intelligent and playful, nimble and love climbing, so the provision of sturdy and safe ‘play’ equipment is beneficial (Figure 2). They are renowned for testing fences and gates, thereby escaping from pens. Kids hide and wait for the does to return to feed them.
Figure 2: The provision of sturdy and safe play' equipment is beneficial
Husbandry
Historically, domestic goats wandered over hills, tended by goat-herders. Some charities provide goats to poor people who find them easy to keep, cheap to manage and that they have multiple uses.
Goats have been used to clear unwanted vegetation and help effectively to remove invasive plants. The goat (like fire) is an excellent servant but a poor master and, left unmanaged, goats can cause severe erosion and even desertification.
The UK goat population is approximately 100,000. Distinct breeds are kept commercially for dairy purposes (Saanen, Anglo Nubian, Toggenburg, Alpine), for meat (Boer) and for fibre (Angora, Cashmere) production. They have also gained popularity as pets (Pygmy) and on children’s farms.
Show judges assess conformation, udder quality, production, longevity, muscle and fibre. Registered stock and offspring of prize animals command a higher price. Records prove ancestry and production data, so their purchase is less risky.
‘Meat’ and ‘fibre’ goats are usually kept at pasture all the year round. Hay or concentrates are only provided in winter or at times of increased nutritional requirement resulting from physiological demands (pregnancy, lactation, growth). Kid meat has a low fat content and tastes similar to lamb or venison. Castration at a young age prevents so-called ‘buck odour’ or taint.
Angoras produce long locks of mohair which grow constantly. The fibre is shorn biannually with an average yield of five kilograms. Cashmere goats produce approximately 200g of soft, fine, insulating hair annually. Cashmere (down or pashmina) is highly desirable to the textile industry.
Milk production
Dairy goats generally graze pasture close to the parlour in summer and are stabled in winter. Goats at pasture require shelter from the rain and wind. Bedding is essential indoors to prevent worn hair over the carpi.
Grazing is supplemented with hay, concentrate and pre-soaked sugar beet pulp, which should also provide adequate minerals. Goats may also be kept intensively in pens (zero grazing) with fresh cuttings provided in mangers.
The best yielding does are generally re-bred annually, while others are milked continuously after their second kidding, until yield drops below an economic level. Typically, surplus male kids were euthanased but many dairy goat farmers now put lower-yielding does to a meat- type buck to produce a cross-bred kid for meat production.
Goats produce two per cent of the world's milk supply by volume. If the buck is not separated from the does, his scent will affect the milk. A doe reaches maximum production during her third lactation. Doe milk (3.5 % fat) is commonly processed into cheese, (white) butter, ice cream and yoghurt.
The Department of Health in the UK has repeatedly released statements stating that goats’ milk is unsuitable for babies and that formulas based on goats’ milk aren’t approved in Europe. Whilst easily digested, doe milk can’t replace cow milk in diets of those who have lactose intolerance because the lactose in doe’s milk is identical to that of bovine milk!.
Dietary needs
In the UK, the risk of obesity related disorders in goats is common. Reputedly goats eat anything; but in reality they are actually fussy and dislike dietary change! Sheep graze but goats browse, so a high forage intake is essential.
Coupled with their natural curiosity, goats will chew and taste almost anything resembling plant matter in order to decide whether it is good to eat. So remember that, Rhododendron spp. and Pieris spp. are toxic.
Goats are selective and wasteful feeders, preferring to nibble bark and browse on tips of shrubs, trees and broad-leaved plants (Figures 3 & 4).
Figures 3 & 4: Goats are selective and wasteful feeders, preferring to nibble bark and browse on tips of shrubs, trees and broad-leaved plants
The digestive physiology of a young kid is essentially that of a monogastric animal, relying on milk digestion in the abomasum. Colostrum is vital s
oon after birth. Milk is required until the age of three months; but, in commercial herds, kids are often removed from the doe at four days old and reared on milk replacer. Hay and creep feed are accepted from one week old, so gradually the rumen develops and increases in size and in its capacity to absorb nutrients.
Goats drink up to 18 litres of water daily, some preferring it warm. Failure to provide fresh, clean water increases the risk of urolithiasis in males.
Reproductive information
Goats reach puberty at approximately five months of age. Does are seasonally polyoestrous (September to March) and usually fertile. The oestrous cycle lasts approximately 21 days. Does ‘in heat’ stay near the buck, show decreased appetite and milk production, tail-wagging, bleating, vulval swelling and mucoid discharge. Many breeders postpone breeding until the doe is over one year old.
Bucks come into ‘rut’ in Autumn, showing decreased appetite, obsessive interest in the does, ‘flehmen’ (lip curling) and urinate on their forelegs and face. Females are attracted by the odour from the scent glands near the buck’s horns. Normal gestation lasts approximately five months. False pregnancy (‘cloudburst’) may sometimes occur and is associated with abdominal enlargement, ending with spontaneous release of uterine fluid.
Kidding is generally uneventful. Signs include ‘talking’, softening of the tail ligaments, restlessness, pawing the ground, shiny udder skin (owing to fullness) and white mucus at the vulva (Figures 5 & 6).
Figures 5 & 6: Signs of kidding include softening of the tail ligaments, white mucus at the vulva and shiny udder skin lowing to its fullness!
Does may eat the placenta to avoid its scent attracting predators (foxes). Twins, single and triplet births are common. Less frequent are litters of quadruplets or more. Hornless goats (polled) are descended from parents carrying dominant polled genes – they frequently produce ‘intersex’ offspring that are infertile.
Good dairy goats produce 1,200 litres of milk per 305-day lactation (equivalent to 2.7 litres per day). Does typically ‘dry off’ once mated. Meat, fibre and pet breeds are not milked, simply suckling their kids until weaned. Goats are precocious milkers and lactation may occur independently of mating – or even in males!
Legislation and welfare
Goats are classified as farm animals and are subject to legislation regulated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Notifiable disease is of prime concern.
Owners also need to be aware of zoonotic diseases (transmissible to humans) which infections and infestations include contagious pustular dermatitis (Orf), ringworm, E.coli, Salmonella, Sarcoptes, caseous lymphadenitis, Cryptosporidium, Chlamydia and Toxoplasma.
Owners require a ‘holding number’ and goats must have two separate means of identification, at least one of which must be an ear tag. Additionally a movement record and medicine books must be maintained. Goats are particularly susceptible to pain and sensitive to xylazine and lidocaine.
Routine care includes dipping the navels of newborn kids, castration, disbudding (reduces accidental injuries), ecto/endoparasite control, foot-trimming and vaccination.
Topics such as the Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Goats, tethering, transport, hygiene (especially of kidding pens and food production areas), euthanasia and carcase disposal are outside the scope of this article.
Conclusion
Many people are ‘feeling the pinch’ at the moment and backyard pets with a purpose, such as goats, are becoming more popular. Even in small animal practice, it is helpful to understand goat care and husbandry.
Author
Clare Spencer BVetMed MRCVS
Clare graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 1984. She has practised in the UK and France, currently working part time in practice and as a technical adviser. Over the last 25 years, she has owned Angora, Toggenburg, Saanen and Pygmy goats. A ’Capricorn' herself, she says their fascinating behaviour and adorable personalities make them delightful pets and terrible time- wasters.
To cite this article use either
DOI: 10.1111/j.2045-0648.2011.00108.x or Veterinary Nursing Journal Vol 26 pp 407-409.
Useful reading
BSAVA Manual of Farm Pets 120081 pp101-U2 Published by the BSAVA. Gloucester.
The Care and Management of Farm Animals 2nd Ed pp 112-120 Published by Balliere Tindall.
An Introduction to Goat Keeping published by the Animal Welfare Foundation of the BVA
The Goat Veterinary Society also produces useful information, www.goatvetsoc.co.uk
• VOL 26 • November 2011 • Veterinary Nursing Journal