Aggressive doe.

[RPC]

How do you all deal with an aggressive doe? I have a doe that is very dominant to the point that if you let her she will injure a doe to the point she can't walk.(that doe is fine now) She also made one of the other does abort her kids. Now this doe is the most friendly goat towards people and it makes me really mad that she is that tough on the other does. I bought her and another doe bred this last winter and while they were quarantined is when the other doe aborted. So because of that I did not put her with the rest of the does so she wouldn't make them abort. She gave us really nice twins this year and I wanted to keep her so we could have more nice kids for the 4-H fair next year but with this behavior I don't think I can unless she changes.Does any one have any suggestions on how to calm her down?

 

[RainySunday]

I have no suggestions, but am in a similar boat. My herd queen has chilled out a bit, but can really be mean to the other girls. We keep our newest doe (who is preg and due in June) separate from the others so she doesn't get beat on until after the kids arrive safely. As long as she behaves nicely with the babies, we will breed the queen soon, and then keep her daughter (if she has one) and probably sell her if she isn't being nicer by then.

 

[terrilhb]

I have no idea. I hope someone helps you soon. Good luck

 

[20kidsonhill]

Take them to the stockyards. It is one thing to have a herd queen, it is another thing for the herd queen to be so mean that no other goat can live safely with her.

 

[20kidsonhill]

It is an entirely different situation when introducing one or two new animals into the herd, in that case, you need to provide them a safe place to get out of the way, extra feeding stations, and possibly some seperation time each day so the new does can get a chance to eat. This is ofcourse, after the isolation period.

 

[Ariel301]

Personally, I'd get rid of her. I had a young doe get aggressive towards the others and break two ribs on an old doe that couldn't run away from her, and I sold that one as quick as I could. There's plenty of goats out there, so to me it isn't worth keeping one that is dangerous.

 

[AlaskanShepherdess]

I haven't had much experience with this, and I don't know if this will work in this situation but it's worth a try. If she is a full sized goat you'll probably need two men to help. "Tackle" the doe to where she is lying on the ground. Her main caretaker needs to straddle her lightly (don't put all your weight on her, just enough to help keep her down). When she submits (stops struggling, puts her head down, becomes calm) get up. This is letting her know YOUR boss. Now as boss make it very clear to her what behavior you will allow or not allow, in whatever way your comfortable with. I would try methods they use, (biting ears etc).

You may have to "tackle" her a couple times to get the message across. We tried it recently with our yearling buck (for screaming) and it worked great!

I don't know if it will work for your doe, but it's worth a shot.

 

[julieq]

No overt aggression allowed in our barn, bucks or does. We have one buck that butted DH just once while I was cleaning stalls recently. He's soon to be picked up by a friend's ranch manager and will become buck burritos! We've kept his son as a bottle baby and hopefully he will be kinder to humans and herd mate bucks.

Same with our semi wild barn cats, i.e. 'attack cats' die of lead poisoning very quickly, which leads to lots of 'friendly' cats in our barn keeping the mice at bay. We are very 'hands on' with our dairy goat herd and they absolutely are not allowed to be rough with us or with herd mates.

 

[chubbydog811]

I haven't had much experience with this, and I don't know if this will work in this situation but it's worth a try. If she is a full sized goat you'll probably need two men to help. "Tackle" the doe to where she is lying on the ground. Her main caretaker needs to straddle her lightly (don't put all your weight on her, just enough to help keep her down). When she submits (stops struggling, puts her head down, becomes calm) get up. This is letting her know YOUR boss. Now as boss make it very clear to her what behavior you will allow or not allow, in whatever way your comfortable with. I would try methods they use, (biting ears etc).

You may have to "tackle" her a couple times to get the message across. We tried it recently with our yearling buck (for screaming) and it worked great!

I don't know if it will work for your doe, but it's worth a shot.

I did that with a yearling buck that started head butting to play (he was a bottle kid, never did it before...I think he was just feeling "frisky" lol!) Worked great. I did a semester of vet tech - one of the classes I took was handling/holding animals...How to drop a goat was the best thing I learned!

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Keep in mind this behavior can be hereditary. I would not keep any does from a mean doe.