OTHER PROBLEMS
*Please feel free to print out these tips.
You may have a goat that knows that it is not allowed
to do something but insists on doing it anyway. Examples might be a goat
that charges out of the gate every time you leave it unattended for a split
second. A goat that stands on the fence or feeder despite getting squirted
with the squirt gun. A goat that insists on snooping in the pannier bags
at camp. A goat that horns the fence. The list goes on and on. I call these
goats nonconformist goats. They are the human equivalent of criminals. They
know right from wrong and willfully choose to do wrong. They are the goats
that if we had started with them first, we would now be packing llamas.
What can be done with these reprobate animals? The
first suggestion would be to cull them from your herd or at least in the
case of a doe, remove it from your breeding program so you are not expanding
the problem. A problem animal is almost always a problem animal. They will
give you grief as long as you own them. Since you are reading this page to
figure out how to deal with the offender then you have probably already decided
to keep it and some other options are needed.
In the case of the problem goat, the desire to do
these actions overrides the fear of punishment. What ever the offense, the
answer to stopping it is to make the fear of punishment outweigh the reward.
Be creative, remove the temptation if at all possible. If you can't remove
the motivating force then take whatever action necessary to make the goat
fear to repeat the offence. Some suggestions may be considered severe by
a few people and if you are one of them then resign yourself to living with
the goats behavior.
A strand of electric fence inside the field fence
will keep the goats from standing on it and stop goats from pushing and horning
it. If you have a goat that ignores the squirt gun then spray the goat with
the water hose instead. A goat that charges past you to get out of the gate
will stop dead in its tracks when given a shot of pepper spray in the face.
It does not have any lasting physical affects but I guarantee the goat will
think twice before risking another shot of it. Use an electronic dog training
collar for a goat that does things out of your reach. The collar is doubly
effective because the goat associates the shock with whatever action it was
doing at the time. If the shock was sufficient the goat will not want to
risk getting another one by doing it again. The shock collar also works on
the goat that beats up on the other goats in the back of the truck or trailer.
The same with the goat snooping in the panniers at camp. A strong shock will
have the goat afraid of what ever lurks inside the bags and it won't be likely
to do it again.
Like I said, some people may view shocking
their goat or spraying it with pepper spray extreme and I do not advocate
this type of correction as the norm, but if you want to stop the problem
then you have to make the crime not worth the time.
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