Yielding to Steady Pressure

There are two (main) ways to indicate to a goat that you would like it to move. Steady pressure and rhythmic pressure. An example of rhythmic pressure is when one wiggles a rope to get a goat to back or twirls the end of the lead to encourage forward motion. Steady pressure is using one's fingers to move a goat backwards or putting pressure on a halter to get them to come towards you. As a rule I would use steady pressure when the goat is within two feet of you (except in the leadrope case) and rhythmic pressure when you are further away.

When teaching a goat to yield to steady pressure start by "focusing your energy" on the part of the goat you want to move, then, using just the tips of your fingers, put pressure on/touch the tips of the hair... then the skin, then the muscle, then the bone. Give about 3 seconds between each phase, more or less depending on your goat. The instant the goat moves, no matter what phase you are at release all pressure to make absolutely clear to the goat that they have done the right thing.

Some things to can try to teach your goat to yield to steady pressure:

1. Put your fingers on either side of the goats nose and, using phases ask it to back. Remember to release the pressure the instant the goat yields at all (even so much as shifting weight in the desired direction).
2. Back with fingers on the chest.
3. Yield hindquarters 360
4. Yield forequarters 360
5. Lower head (put fingers behind ears)
6. Pick up all four feet
7. Lead by front leg?

There are some ideas to get started with. The first six are very important. I will add more interesting ones (for those of you whose goats get bored easily) at a later date.

M.

The friendly/desensitizing game

Hopefully your goat will let you touch it and comes running to you in the field.... If not then you need to play the catching game. If your goat comes to you but is not comfortable with you touching it, or when you are introducing a new piece of equipment, you need to play the 'friendly' game.

The idea behind the friendly game is that by going to your goat's threshold and then backing off, you can gradually build up their confidence. You take a great big fear and chop it up into littler pieces which are much easier to tackle. For instance. Say your goat is ear/head shy. You probably will not accomplish much if you just keep going directly for their head again and again. You may even make the fear worse. Start at the shoulder. Most goats are comfortable with being touched there. (If you are trying to catch a goat approach it at an angle towards the shoulder but that is another topic.) Just hang out and scratch it. Gradually move up the neck towards the sensitive area. As soon as you think the goat is un-confident, or even unsure, back off. Go back down the neck a few inches.... wait, and then go back up. Maybe a little further this time. Be sure to keep your "personal energy" neutral while you do this. Eventually, one would hope, the goat will decide that maybe you aren't actually going to rip its head off and will be comfortable being touched on the head

Here are some things to try to test your friendly game/goat's confidence:

1. Touch the goat all over with your hands (if they are comfortable with it). Make a note of any sticky spots to work on again later.
2. Toss a rope gently over them six times.
3. Put on your halter in a polite fashion.
4. Stand by the shoulder and "helicopter" the rope over your's and your goats head. Don't wack anyone!
5. Flap a raincoat
6. Open an umbrella
7. Get the goat to go across a tarp spread out on the ground

Of course you don't need to/shouldn't try all of these immediately. I'd try the first three before you start doing other games (unless you have an aggressive goat in which case respect comes first) and then come back to the others as you and your goat progress.

Have fun! Happy goating
M.

This is a change.

I had originally intended this blog to be devoted solely to goats. But I have discovered that there are too many other interesting things going on around the 'farm' and so I will henceforth be writing about all of those things (well not all) as well.

As you may or may not know my family recently moved houses. I specify houses because the house we moved into is right next door to the trailer that we have been renting for the past ten years and the land we are using has not changed at all. My family lives right next door to my mother's parents who own the 15 acres on which my goats live. Enough history.

The most recent (and exciting) development is the remaking of our garden. I say remaking because the garden had been taking a break for two years while my father (its main cultivator) built our house. The time has come to dig it up again with many improvements. We now have raised beds made out of cinder blocks from a wall that we tore down while turning the barn into our house. Dad used the rototiller to break up the dirt a bit and then we used a string to get all the blocks lined up beautifully.

The other improvement is to the soil. As you will probably find if you ever make a garden from scratch that when you first dig it up the soil it is hard and lumpy and full of bits of grass and roots. The problem with the roots is that they give the weeds an unfair advantage. You will have better luck if you start ahead and get all the bits and pieces out first thing. How to do it? How to get a soft, weedless bed? Sift it. Yes. My current project is indeed that of sifting two 4x20ft garden beds. Our lettuce (or more accurately beets and kale) will have a bed so soft that they will sleep for a hundred years. (Didn't you know that that was why plants don't talk? Refer to Chapter 2 of Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) 

That is what is happening right now. Apart from in the garden I'm also harvesting wild passion fruit and gathering all the chestnuts which happen to fall in my path..... The goats think they are excellent treats.
M.

Understanding Body Language

Commanding is one sided. Communication is two sided. To make your interactions with your goat communication you first need to learn how to understand what the goat is saying and why it is doing what it is doing. I think I can safely say that there are two main reason a goat does things; two states it can be in when it is acting. One is fear, the other is confidence (which can be broken down into littler pieces but not now.) . A goat can run because it is scared or run because it is having fun. A goat can resist having its hooves picked up from fear or because it just doesn't want you doing that right now. In the hoof example you can see how much it matters whether the action/reaction is fear based or not. If the goat is scared you should back off, go more slowly, and give it time. If the goat is just resisting because it wants to be dominant you need to keep holding the hoof (even if the goat rears etc.) until it complies so it will respect you. That is why you should be able to read your goat. How do you do it?

Firstly: I've had people ask me if a goat wagging its tail means the goat is happy. The short answer is no, with the qualifier: not necessarily. The way I think about it is that you look at the rest of the goat (ear position etc.) for the emotion and then at the tail for the magnitude of the emotion. This is because I've seen my boys wagging their tails furiously both when they are drinking a nice bottle of milk and when they are fighting.

The emotion shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Ears back means that the goat is either paying attention to something behind it or not particularly thrilled with life at that moment. Airplane ears mean a goat is just chilling. Ears pricked forward can either be about being happy/interested or really focused on something in front of it. You should also look at the position of the head and neck to get more information. A level neck/lowered head is a relaxed goat. If the goats head is held up high then it is looking out for danger/scared. I think the optimal position if you are playing with a goat would be with the head somewhat up.

You should also look out for a goat that is licking it's lips/chewing without having eaten anything... they are learning.