KaleIAm
Ridin' The Range
We have 2 Nigerian dwarf wethers. The "nice one," Doc (9.5 years old) is basically perfect. And the "mischievous one," Mullie (8.5 years old) who is my reason for posting.
We got our pet goats about 7.5 years ago, from a shelter. They weren't raised together, the shelter put them together right before we adopted them. Doc is extremely friendly and always has been - like a puppy dog really. Mullie had a hard start to life. He was thrown from the back of a truck onto a busy highway when he was a young goat. Someone saw it happen, took him to the shelter, he stayed there briefly and then came to us. He was very scared of us and we didn't push him to be social. Over the years he slowly has decided we are trustworthy. Within the last year he has even allowed full body petting.
Some of our issue is that Mullie has horns and Doc does not. Mullie is clearly the more dominant goat since he has become an adult. We have two hay racks for them, and if I put hay in Doc's first Mullie will be upset and head butt Doc in the belly. Other times I have no idea why Mullie chases Doc around head butting him in the belly. He can even lift poor Doc up off the ground or corner him.
Is this ok? Is this normal for goats?
The other issue is that in the last year Mullie has been scraping his horns on my inner thighs. He really digs the tip in and leaves 8 inch long bruises that last for 3 weeks. I believe he is doing it because he wants attention, but regardless it is unacceptable. Mullie even got upset with me because I fed a treat to Doc and so Mullie head butted me and knocked me over!!
How do you discipline a goat? Do you discipline a goat? He needs to know that I'm in charge and I don't know how to communicate that in goat language.
If it helps, I'm female. They have a huge year around grassy pasture they go into all day, and they get locked into a barn at night. They get timothy hay every evening. We let them out to eat blackberry bushes about once a week
Thank you for any advice. We don't really know much about goats. But this has to stop!
We got our pet goats about 7.5 years ago, from a shelter. They weren't raised together, the shelter put them together right before we adopted them. Doc is extremely friendly and always has been - like a puppy dog really. Mullie had a hard start to life. He was thrown from the back of a truck onto a busy highway when he was a young goat. Someone saw it happen, took him to the shelter, he stayed there briefly and then came to us. He was very scared of us and we didn't push him to be social. Over the years he slowly has decided we are trustworthy. Within the last year he has even allowed full body petting.
Some of our issue is that Mullie has horns and Doc does not. Mullie is clearly the more dominant goat since he has become an adult. We have two hay racks for them, and if I put hay in Doc's first Mullie will be upset and head butt Doc in the belly. Other times I have no idea why Mullie chases Doc around head butting him in the belly. He can even lift poor Doc up off the ground or corner him.
Is this ok? Is this normal for goats?
The other issue is that in the last year Mullie has been scraping his horns on my inner thighs. He really digs the tip in and leaves 8 inch long bruises that last for 3 weeks. I believe he is doing it because he wants attention, but regardless it is unacceptable. Mullie even got upset with me because I fed a treat to Doc and so Mullie head butted me and knocked me over!!
How do you discipline a goat? Do you discipline a goat? He needs to know that I'm in charge and I don't know how to communicate that in goat language.
If it helps, I'm female. They have a huge year around grassy pasture they go into all day, and they get locked into a barn at night. They get timothy hay every evening. We let them out to eat blackberry bushes about once a week
Thank you for any advice. We don't really know much about goats. But this has to stop!