Goat doing weird stuff...

[dhansen]

My friends's goat keeps arching her head upward and back. At first I thought she was stretching, but she does it often. Any ideas? She is a 1 year old nubian doe. She was thinking of having her bred, but if this is some strange defect or disease, she may not.

 

[PotterWatch]

One of mine does that all the time, usually when she is trying to show us how upset it makes her that she can't get out of the pen, but sometimes just for the heck of it.

 

[pridegoethb4thefall]

I read once that it is normal behavior. Is your goat hornless? Goats will use their horns to scratch their backs, and I think the hornless ones 'forget' they dont have horns to scratch with, but still go through the motions like they do have horns.

I think the behavior is normal though. Sometimes they are just being silly, sometimes they are looking around, other times they have a bad itch they cant scratch.

 

[EggsForIHOP]

I read once that it is normal behavior. Is your goat hornless? Goats will use their horns to scratch their backs, and I think the hornless ones 'forget' they dont have horns to scratch with, but still go through the motions like they do have horns.

I think the behavior is normal though. Sometimes they are just being silly, sometimes they are looking around, other times they have a bad itch they cant scratch.

Yup...my husband calls it the "phantom horn pains" because they have an itch they can't scratch without horns...he's a PITA (the husband) always speaking for the goats like he's the Lorax or something...

 

[pridegoethb4thefall]

I read once that it is normal behavior. Is your goat hornless? Goats will use their horns to scratch their backs, and I think the hornless ones 'forget' they dont have horns to scratch with, but still go through the motions like they do have horns.

I think the behavior is normal though. Sometimes they are just being silly, sometimes they are looking around, other times they have a bad itch they cant scratch.

Yup...my husband calls it the "phantom horn pains" because they have an itch they can't scratch without horns...he's a PITA (the husband) always speaking for the goats like he's the Lorax or something...

RIGHT! Are you the one that posted about this before??? If ya are- thank you for that bit of info! I never would have thought of that myself and it makes so much sense.


(lorax......hee hee, that was )

 

[SarahFair]

I read once that it is normal behavior. Is your goat hornless? Goats will use their horns to scratch their backs, and I think the hornless ones 'forget' they dont have horns to scratch with, but still go through the motions like they do have horns.

I think the behavior is normal though. Sometimes they are just being silly, sometimes they are looking around, other times they have a bad itch they cant scratch.

Thats what it sounds like to me..

 

[Pearce Pastures]

The goat lorax! They should make that into a movie---I'd go see it.

 

[Mamaboid]

My Elsie does this all the time, and our preggo Nubie is doing it more often now that she is getting closer to kidding. Both of these goats are hornless, one disbudded one polled. None of the horned goats do it that I have seen, so you could very well be on to something here.

 

[dhansen]

Thank you all. It seemed weird to me, but I am glad it appears "normal". These goats were not disbudded, but did have the horns banded...which "kind of" worked.

 

[DonnaBelle]

My goat with horns does this arching and throwing her head back.

She is a giant PITA, she's got the horns baby, and she knows it. She's the only one in a herd of 20 goats with horns. In a moment of weakness and dogoodness we took her from a nitwit down the road that was feeding her dogfeed.

She's an Alpine, her behavior overall is much different from the hornless Nubians. I don't have an ill tempered Nubian goat, but this Alpine is a witch. I stay away from her, she likes DH and he can handle her but she needs Prozac. Sometimes she will come up to me and want her head scratched, other times she wants to kill me, I can see it in her eyes.

No horney goats for me, thank you very much.

DonnaBelle