Bully goat!

[littlelambx3]

I have 3 goats currently. One is a female, who is currently pregnant, and the rest are all male. All the males are weathers.

Bently, is a bully. He likes to ram my other goats, bite them, chase after them, and make sure they know HE is in charge. I don't reward the behavior, but I don't know what to do! I had to separate my female, because he would not leave her alone and she is a month away from giving birth, and it was stressing her out. She is much happier. But now, he picks on his roomie even more. He is constantly being a bully!

Any advice?

 

[alsea1]

I don't know what you can do.
He may just be a bad goat.
I have a ram right now that is pushing the limits of my good nature. I am contemplating sending him to freezer camp because of bully and unruly behaviour.

 

[marlowmanor]

Have to agree that if you can't find a way to stop the behavior, it may be time to rehome him or send him to freezer camp. :/

Have you tried a water bottle? Just squirt him in the face with it when he misbehaves.
I've also read people suggest putting the bully goat in a seperate area for a week (time may be more or less than that, hopefully someone will have more details for you soon) then reintroduce him to the herd. The idea is that in the time the bully is away from the herd the herd will regroup and end up with a new top goat. When the bully is reintroduced they start back at the bottom of the social ladder. Perhaps being treated like a newbie would mellow him out.

Another suggestion would be maybe giving him a job? Not sure what breed Bently is or how old he is. Maybe you could train him as a pack or cart goat? Maybe if he had a purpose and you had to work with him training he'd mellow out?

My 2 wethers will be 2 years old this July. Just in the past few months they have gotten more aggressive with each other, especially it seems when I am out there. One of them actually bit one of my does (the lowest ranked goat) tails when I was trimming her hooves. I popped him on the nose, gave a stern "NO" and warned him not to try it again. My wethers are the top goats in my herd it seems. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on them when our does kid. Not sure how they will do with babies. We are fixing an area for the does for kidding and to be in a few days to bond with kids. If the wethers start having issues with babies, we can always separate them from the moms and babies.

Hopefully someone else will come along with some ideas too.