Pushy young buck?

[Shiloh Acres]

I wonder if I can get suggestions for dealing with my young buck. He's a horned Nubian, about six months old or so, just starting buckish behaviors (his face is getting sticky).

He's basically a lovey sweetheart who loves attention and getting scratched. He loves food even more. He's very dependent on being close to the does and is afraid if he feels lonely. He's also a tank who shoves his head into any bucket I try to carry and already he's about too strong for me to handle.

He hasn't been mean or aggressive, ever. But he HAS gotten impatient and put his forehead against me and pushed gently, mostly to hurry me or in hopes of getting past me through a gate. I wonder if this is an early sigh of things to come. Coupled with his no-fear lovies he could become a problem?

I've never pushed on his head. I have used a spray bottle and even a water hose spray, with varying results. Depends how bad he wants whatever it is. I can't throw him or get him off his feet in any way, except to lift his forequarters off the ground. Yesterday I grabbed an ear and used it to spin him around, which seemed to surprise him and straightened him out for a while.

As long as I manage gates and food carefully, there is no problem. He's a sweetie -- just wants any and all food and sometimes wants through a gate. I'm just worried about what if he becomes aggressive and if I can do anything now to make him respect me?

Thanks!!!

 

[Calliopia]

Two words : Spray bottle. If those don't work : Spray hose


I have a darling doll baby of a buck who when even in rutt is not a complete butthead. Once in a while though he needs to be taken down a peg or two and a good dowsing does the trick.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

LOL, I keep a spray bottle hanging outside the gate. It SOMEtimes gives him pause. If I can hit him right up the nose maybe. Usually he gives it less attention than a fly.

I have totally SOAKED him with the hose before. He will usually give up after a few really good blasts. That can't be a long-term solution though? I can carry the spray bottle with me, not so much the hose.

Once he got back in the pasture while my llama was still finishing her food from a bucket hung on the fence. He had to stand up to get his head in it. She tried spitting. He didn't even notice. She resorted to trying to push him off the fence with her chest. Short of LAYING on him, she did just about all she could. His head stayed in the bucket. She's a chowhound too, but she finally had to give up and walk away. She outweighs him by probably 5x.

Obviously, I make sure that doesn't happen again.

Thanks for the post.

 

[Calliopia]

When a plain spray bottle didn't work on our cat we put vinegar in it. Maybe the spray needs to be more obnoxious?


And maybe it's time for something like a cattle prod. Once when rutt first started and he was being a total arse I zapped him with the gate wire to the electric fence when he was guarding the pasture entrance.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Ah, I forgot about cattle prods. I kinda hate to jump to that step prematurely, but I guess if he becomes worse I'll keep it in mind. I'd rather zap him a time or two, if that's what it ends up taking, rather than have him become dangerous ... Or barbecue.

I'm really looking forward to seeing his kids, so I really don't want to have to not use him. Like I said, he's really just a lovey anyway. I lovey, voracious TANK, LOL.

I've tried to be a bit more standoffish with him anyway, so he doesn't look to me so much for affection. And also hoping it will help him respect me more. He was spoiled rotten when I got him, LOL, and that has pretty much remained his attitude.

Thanks!

 

[Mea]

While it probably would be.."just one more thing to juggle"... a bucket of cold water might help when the squirt gun doesn't. The soaker hose is a Good idea !

Also... Are there are ways to give him needed care ( food, water etc.)... and Not go inside his pen ? We try to arrainge the buck pen so that we do not have to physically enter it, for routine daily care. Emergancies...ja, we go in.


Thankfully, the worst of rut doesn't last forever ! It just Seems like it.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Actually you may be onto something with the bucket of water.

I have various animals to feed, so a couple times a day I get however-many large cups of rabbit food, supplements for geese and guineas, extra scratch for the chickens, whatever. I use a large feed bucket to carry all the big cups, and feed from the same buckets. That's when I get mobbed by whoever is in the yard I pass through.

If the bucket sometimes contained cold water and it got dumped on his head, he MIGHT think twice. (then again it might have a kinda slot-machine effect -- if it SOMEtimes pays off he could get worse, LOL.)

But yes, he's SUPPOSED to be in a pen I don't have to go through or into, and not adjacent to the does. Sigh, with having to isolate the doelings and the fact that neither of the boys are weaned yet (I know!)

well, with all that I'm switching everyone around throughout the day, and for half the day the boys are in the backyard, which shares gates with the big pasture and the poulty/rabbit yard.

If I get the bucket down quickly, it all goes smoothly. Until I bring the geese in (their sleeping house is in the yard but they spend their days in the big pasture). THAT'S a circus, LOL, and a whole 'nother post.