Only the Lonely: The Effects of Keeping a Single Goat
Reading Time: 5 minutes
The idea of a baby goat raised in the house and treated like the family dog might seem wonderful. Goats are as personable as dogs, and the smaller breeds are often advertised as pets or companion animals. However, no matter how many cute videos you may see of a diapered kid running around someone’s house, there are numerous reasons why keeping a single goat should be avoided, if possible.
The best argument against keeping a single goat is that they’re social animals and need companionship. To families with someone around regularly, it may seem reasonable to think humans can provide the needed attention for a goat. Again, dogs are also social animals and are happy to make humans their social circle, but this comparison doesn’t work well for a variety of reasons.
Goats Aren’t Dogs
Humans domesticated dogs around 30,000 years ago for the sole purpose of working side-by-side with humans. Goats and sheep were domesticated only about 10,000 years ago, and as as livestock — not pets. This means that while goats are happy to take food and attention from us, they aren’t bred to think of us as a part of the herd that’s expected to live with them most of the time.
There’s also a difference in the social structures of dogs and goats. Dogs are descended from ancient wolves and travel in packs. Wolf packs are hierarchical and developed to hunt and defend territory. Dogs and wolves are predators and have much more in common with early humankind than goats.
Goats are mainly descended from wild bezoar goats from the area around Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. As prey animals, their herd structure is designed for defense. They cluster with similar animals to make targeting a single individual difficult. More sets of far-seeing eyes, with their horizontal pupils and wide eye placement, make it easier to see predators approaching. In short, humans lack all the traits that goats need in their herdmates. We also lack the necessary skull and neck structures to play at butting heads and the springs in our legs to bounce around and play with them in a goat-like fashion.
The Problem With Keeping a Single Goat
Inexperienced humans (the most likely candidates to try to keep a lone goat) often make mistakes when bottle-feeding a goat kid. Some of the major health issues in young goats are because of improper bottle feeding, such as too much or not enough, milk that isn’t warm enough, or incorrectly mixed milk replacer.
If the lone goat returns to live amongst other goats later in life, it will be unfamiliar with the body language used between goats to defuse tensions, have far different social coping skills, struggle to integrate with other goats, and likely have a negative outcome if the goat needs to be rehomed for any reason during its 10 to 18 years of life. The likelihood of finding another indoor home as a single goat is slim.
Those considering bringing a goat into their home long-term may not have considered all the ramifications. While goats can be trained to go to a specific area for urination, they have little control over defecation and will often go wherever they’re standing, so they’ll need to wear diapers for life to prevent a lot of messes. That cute baby goat won’t stay little for long — even the smallest breeds average 40 to 60 pounds. They’ll jump and chew on everything. If the kid isn’t disbudded, horn-proofing your house will make childproofing feel like a walk in the park.
What We Want and What They Need
“Cute” isn’t a reason to keep a solo goat, and it isn’t fair to the animal — they need other goats. Many dairy goat breeders show and raise baby goats on the bottle or lambar. However, they have groups of kids and keep them outside. Most of the bottle babies you see in the house on the internet are only there temporarily. They or their mothers may have health problems, so they can’t stay out with the herd while being tended to. Most breeders will keep them indoors only until they are strong enough to go back outside with the herd.
Goats can be pets and a part of your family, but they still need to be goats, and they still need interaction with their own species. They can even do okay if kept with other species that have similar herd structures and environments like sheep, horses, and cows. In fact, goats have frequently been used as companion animals for those species. Keeping multiple goats together (or with other herd-type animals) outside is a far more sustainable option than making a single goat a house pet, and ultimately, what’s best for the animal.
SHERRI TALBOT is the co-owner and operator of Saffron and Honey Homestead in Windsor, Maine. She raises endangered livestock breeds and educates on heritage breeds, sustainable living, and the importance of eating locally.
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Originally published in the March/April 2025 digital issue of Goat Journal
