Goat Body Language FAQ
What Do Postures, Gestures, and Bleating Goat Sounds Mean?
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Goats build tight-knit social groups and have subtle ways of communicating with each other. Recent research has confirmed that goats attempt to communicate with people too. It is helpful to understand goat body language and bleat meaning, so that we can address their needs, identify problems, and manage the herd efficiently. It is also important to understand how goats perceive our actions and how our behavior affects them. Most goat keepers want to know when their goat is happy or sick or in pain, so that they can take appropriate action. And there are particular behaviors that puzzle humans that can be explained by goats’ natural social behavior.
What Do Head and Body Postures Mean?
Postures may be useful for assessing goats’ emotional response. However, goat body language can vary with many factors in the environment, current activity, and an individual’s idiosyncrasies. As each posture can have several meanings, they need to be read in combination with other observations and in context.
Goats move their ears around in response to sounds to pinpoint their direction. A wary goat may change ear position more rapidly and point ears in different directions. When goats are attentive they point their ears forward. You need to look at other postural clues to gauge whether this means interest or apprehension. Ears may be turned backward more often during negative situations, such as during aggression, discomfort, or pain. Alternatively, the goat may be simply listening to sound behind them or avoiding entanglement.
Tails are normally held away from the body at an angle that differs between individuals. A tail tucked in may indicate a cold wind, illness, or fear. Research confirms that tail posture has a link with emotional state, as tails are held up more often in positive situations than negative ones. Laying the tail back on the body appears to be connected to excitement, such as finding a favorite feed or engaging in play, fighting, or courtship.
How Do You Know If a Goat Is Happy?
Goats are happy when they’re healthy, can meet their needs, and have interesting tasks to occupy them. Goat body language can help you gauge the mood of your goats. If ears are alert, but the facial muscles are relaxed, you can assume your goat is interested, rather than scared. When your goat is relaxed, so are the ears: they may rest sideways, lie horizontal, or droop. The lower lip is also relaxed and may droop or protrude. Healthy, contented goats are inquisitive and enjoy regular browsing and exercise. Although they still need plenty of rest to process feed, they should remain responsive and perform regular rumination.
Why Do Goats Rub Their Heads on You?
Goats frequently rub their heads against objects, such as branches, posts, and brushes, to scratch between the horns and, perhaps, to ease tension. They only rub their heads on other goats if they trust one another and have a good friendship bond. Goats who rub against people must trust them and have positive feelings toward them. It is likely to reinforce bonding through a show of affection.
Why Do Goats Wag Their Tails?
Tail-wagging is a form of goat body language that can have different meanings depending on context. When newborn kids suckle, they wag their tails, and their mother attends to the anal area and keeps it clean. As they grow, they continue to wag when they intend to suckle. Even adult goats may wag when you offer feed, although some grow out of this habit. Kids sometimes wag their tails when distressed or in pain. It may be a signal to their mother or carer to attend to them. As goats prepare to engage in combat (horn or head clashing) or play, they also wag their tails. It is likely to be a generalized signal to call for attention.
Tail-wagging in does is often a sign of estrus, and probably serves to disperse pheromones advertising their fertility. It is also a reflex to dispel flies.
Goats are also known to gaze and paw at people when asking for help and attention. Pawing is also used to prepare a comfortable resting spot or to issue a challenge.
Using Goat Body Language to Assess Levels of Stress and Fear
Goat body language will help you know if your goat is stressed, scared, or nervous. Ears will be alert or moving and the jaw muscles tense. Frightened goats open their eyes wide, often showing the whites. Goats may bleat more frequently or remain silent. Some goats become more active, while others may hide or become immobile. The response also depends on the situation. An isolated goat initially bleats loudly and actively attempts to rejoin the herd, but may eventually give up, become still or lie down, and resort to lower closed-mouth bleats.
Recognizing Pain in Goats Using Goat Body Language
Goats tend to hide pain and sickness by nature, but there are subtle clues in goat body language to look out for. These are particularly apparent in facial expressions and comfort behaviors: tense jaw muscles, teeth grinding, lowered head, and ears pointing backward more often. A goat shaking their head or flicking their ears may have pain in that region, and goats often rub or scratch the affected body part. With abdominal pain, they may even kick their belly. Sore limbs are lifted when at rest. Any behavior uncharacteristic of a certain individual can indicate a problem, so it is important to get to know each goat. Typical signs of sickness are self-isolation, avoidance or aggression when touched, lethargy, and lack of interest in feed.
Why Do Goats Spit?
Male goats spit as a warning to competitors and aggressors to retreat. Such goats can become dangerous if aggravated. You should leave a spitting buck in peace to avoid violence escalating.
Goats of both sexes gesture warnings to one another before starting a fight. The head is raised, horns pointed toward to the opponent, ears oriented upright but backward, hackles raised, and eyes wide open. If a goat warns an approaching human in this way it is best to keep away or secure their head before approach. The goat may think that you are going to take their food or perform an unpleasant procedure. If a goat approaches you in this posture, it is a challenge for dominance. A quick squirt from a water bottle should dissuade, otherwise training is required to stop a goat from head butting or barging you.
Dominance gestures are often used during courtship and play: pawing, rearing, mounting, head clashing or pushing, and gobbling. Context and intensity will help you to gauge each goat’s motivation. You need not worry about goats butting heads. This is ritual for establishing hierarchy and not dangerous. However, if butts are aimed at the flank, rump, or legs, injuries can happen.
Why Do Goats Scream?
People are often surprised to hear goats screaming like humans. This piercing goat scream is usually an attempt to locate mates. In the wild, mature males and females do not mix out of season, so they need to find each other over large distances once the season starts. A female goat yelling loudly and frequently is a sign of estrus, and a buck within earshot will yell back. A goat may also give a brief, but loud, shout in response to acute pain. Loud bleats generally mean there is strong motivation behind the call.
Goats bleating constantly may indicate that there is a problem. For example, a goat has become separated from the herd or stuck in a fence.
Goats use a wide vocal range by modifying the shape of their vocal tract. Calls can be long and vary in acoustic qualities, so that there are some goats that scream like humans.
What Do Goat Noises Mean?
Although a lot of communication is silent, using gestures and odors, goats use sound to communicate over distance. Goats can identify a known individual or social group and their emotions from the sound a goat makes.
There is an open-mouthed bleat to greet companions, caprine and human, to encourage the companion to approach or dissuade them from leaving. I have observed goats move on to new pastures, then stop and wait when remaining herd members call them back. Similarly, goats bleat in this way to encourage their human to attend to them. At close quarters a quiet, closed-mouth bleat is used to greet companions and by mothers to comfort their kids. These calls tend to be stable and clear and are associated with positive emotions. On the other hand, a goat bleating with a shaky voice may be distressed or frustrated. I have also noticed a quiet grunt as a dominant goat warns a subordinate to move.
During courtship, a buck “gobbles” while he flaps his tongue toward the female. He may extend his flirting to humans or other males if he lacks does to court. Both bucks and does may use this low, guttural sound as a sign of dominance. However, does who persistently gobble or mount may be experiencing hormonal issues, such as cystic ovaries.
Can I Train My Goat to Do Tricks or Follow Commands?
Goats are sensitive to human expressions and gestures and most respond well to positive reinforcement training. Therefore, you can train them with a clicker or well-timed food reward, as you would a dog. They can learn to associate words with activities and often recognize their own names. Remember that goats are not as keen to please you as your dog would be, so a food reward is important to retain interest, but be careful not to give too much. Use a variety of healthy snacks with which the goat is already familiar and that will not give the rumen a carb overload, and save the favorite treat until last. Training can be useful for encouraging goats to use a milking stand or other equipment, giving a positive vibe to a new environment, discouraging unwanted behavior, and providing interesting activity.
References:
- Nawroth, C., Brett, J.M., and McElligott, A.G., 2016. Goats display audience-dependent human-directed gazing behaviour in a problem-solving task. Biology Letters, 12(7), 20160283.
- Briefer, E.F., Tettamanti, F., and McElligott, A.G., 2015. Emotions in goats: mapping physiological, behavioural and vocal profiles. Animal Behaviour, 99, 131–143.
- Bellegarde, L.G., Haskell, M.J., Duvaux-Ponter, C., Weiss, A., Boissy, A., and Erhard, H.W., 2017. Face-based perception of emotions in dairy goats. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 193, 51–59.
- Siebert, K., Langbein, J., Schön, P. C., Tuchscherer, A., and Puppe, B., 2011. Degree of social isolation affects behavioural and vocal response patterns in dwarf goats (Capra hircus). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 131(1-2), 53–62.
- Briefer, E.F., and McElligott, A.G., 2012. Social effects on vocal ontogeny in an ungulate, the goat, Capra hircus. Animal Behaviour, 83(4), 991–1000.
- Pitcher, B.J., Briefer, E.F., Baciadonna, L., and McElligott, A.G., 2017. Cross-modal recognition of familiar conspecifics in goats. Royal Society Open Science, 4(2), 160346.
- Baciadonna, L., Briefer, E.F., Favaro, L., and McElligott, A.G., 2019. Goats distinguish between positive and negative emotion-linked vocalisations. Frontiers in Zoology, 16(1), 1–11.
- Nawroth, C., 2017. Invited review: Socio-cognitive capacities of goats and their impact on human–animal interactions. Small Ruminant Research, 150, 70–75.
Originally published in the July/August 2023 issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
