O.K. goatlovers, this is your chance to stick up for your favorite animal! What is the most intelligent thing your goats have ever done? An aquaintance asserted recently, that goats are stupid, that cows and sheep are much smarter! I have to disagree, but other than my doe Delilah, who can untie certain knots with her lips, and notices EVERY time I don't latch the gate, I couldn't give any examples.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 28, 2000

Answers

I don't know about goats, but can not imagine how they could fail to be smarter. Range cows are dumber than rocks and sheep may be dumber.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 28, 2000.

My daughter's male Toggenberg goat, Buckaroo, doesn't miss a trick. A few weeks ago we found the goats out in the pasture when we had closed them in their stall in the barn to go shopping. We thought it was neighborhood kids playing pranks. So I closed them back in the stall and watched through a window. The stall has a sliding latch on it. The kind you have to lift up and slide to one side. Buckaroo grabbed the latch in his teeth, lifted his head and then tossed his head to one side. And out he came, with the other goats close behind. The six foot pasture fence doesn't stop him either. Most of the time he's content and stays put. That is, until my neighbor's alfalfa fields ripen. Then he sails over the fence like a gazelle, eats his fill and sails back over with the neighbor's collie in hot pursuit. And I swear he has that expression on his face that says "Huh? Who, ME?

(:raig

-- Craig Miller (CMiller@ssd.com), December 28, 2000.

i think goats have very interesting personalities. I raise alpines as many of you know and they seem to me to be the most intelligent of the breeds, but then I am a bit prejudiced. The most interesting story i read pertaining to the intelligence of goats is a story callled the "old One' It recently made its round son the goat lists. Its a story of a couple who raised goats and had a fire in their barn. The odl goat, which was a doe, was able to unlatch the gate and take the herd to safety to the top of the hill thus saving all. I could go on and on about just the little things my girls and bad boys do every day that are so amazing. I will say that they can figure out how to get out of just about any fence, seem to know when they are going to be in a competitive show and cop attitudes, know when the milk tester is coming and fuss, and so forth and so on.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), December 28, 2000.

Bernice, our goats must be related except mine are nubians. I try to tell people about my "girls" and people just raise their eyes and say yah-sure. Mine also know when they are being rushed and then they really cop and attitude. I have read the "old one" story. Our Mich. Dairy Goat Assn. just had it in their newsletter. I believe it. I am hoping that I can milk goats until the day I die.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), December 28, 2000.

My second doe, an Alpine/Nubian, was wicked to the core. Since she earned her star on one day test, could carry a 2+ year lactation and still be giving a half gallon a day when I dried her off, we tolerated her mischief. She was the boss until just a few months before she died at 14 of heart failure. The funniest thing I can remember her doing was crowding a kid into the electric fence to see if it was hot. She did this repeatedly and would go out any time it was weak or out.

We had a registered Nubian named Nutmeg. I had left the herd in a small paddock for the morning while I took a load of wethers to the butcher, one of them Meg's kid. When I got home and turned them out onto the main pasture, Meg walked past me then wheeled and ran right up to me. She screamed in my face, a noise I had never heard coming from a goat before or since, then wheeled again and thundered after the rest of the herd. It was if she were telling me what she thought of me for taking her baby away.

Prissy and Pain (guess how she got that name!) can open any feed container I have on the place. I have to keep grain cans locked behind a door to keep those two out of them. Both love dry dog food so it's got to be secured as well. Oh, and Pain jumps any fence to get what she wants but she won't go back in. Her registered name is PITA for Pain In The ____.

I also have had cows-commercial Angus-and currently have pet sheep for my own spinning. The cows were just brute force, no thought but avoid humans, except for the first cow my brother and I owned. She was raised a range cow to the age of 3 and hated humans, especially the smaller variety (my brother and me, for example.) I wish I had a dollar for everytime she tried to send me to the next world. She was some mama though. When we sold her she was approaching 15, she had a beautiful heifer at her side and was bred back. She'd given us a calf each year, mostly heifers, for the entire 11+ years we had her.

My sheep being pets, are more socialized than most of the other sheep I've been around. I sometimes think they have me trained as they will individually but occasionally as a group, just stare at me until I notice and give them a bit of grain. I've deliberately ignored them but the staring continues. They know their names and will come individually when called. I've had more fun with some of my neighbors, particularly the men, who think sheep are dumb/wild, etc. until I call Ewenice. She will spin on a dime to face me, bleat with her funny little broken-starter-engine voice and come barreling up to me for a treat. These neighbors then look like fish out of water with their mouths hanging open.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), December 28, 2000.

We have both goats and cattle. I agree that goats are very smart, especialy when it comes to opening things (gates, feed containers etc) but I do have to stick up for our cattle also. We have registered Angus. We have had cows that would simply step over the fence, graze away until they were full and then put themselves back. We would find tracks all over but never catch them out. They'd let themselve out when we were gone for the day at work and be back before we got home!

-- Trisha (tank@Linkup.net), December 28, 2000.

I also have a ewe named Ewenice! My sheep are Shetlands, only sheep I have ever owned. They appear to be more intelligent than "normal" sheep breeds, but perhaps that is because they are still more or less primitives.

As for goats, yes they are smart! Too darn smart for their own good. They are capable of any sort of mischief, especially when it comes to getting into feed. I have to keep all my feed in a separate room, with locks on the doors that are way higher than any of the goats can reach. I double check the locks each night before heading for the house. The gate to their pen is locked from the outside, plus has a heavy web dog collar cinched around the gate and fence post and fastened on the outside, just for good measure. If I have my girls out in our yard and I go in the house, at least one will follow, open the back door and beat feet into the kitchen. These goats (Nubians) will get into, go through, or get out of anything. They are very people oriented and let me know (verbally) if the slightest thing is wrong. They also pay for their keep better than about any homestead animal I can think of. I also have one little grade doe, that I rescued when she was a week old. At first I kept her in a large box in my kitchen. She didn't want to mess in her box, so would hollar every time she had to "go potty", at which time I would carry her outside. In 2 days she was housebroke, and would hollar and run to the door when she needed to go out. (She could jump out of the box by then.) She would watch tv with dh in the evenings and entertain herself jumping from one couch to another. She lived indoors for about 2 months and never did have any accidents in the house.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@webtv.net), December 28, 2000.

Yes, I had a little doeling born during a very cold time of the year, plus, she was a bit on the small, weak side. So, in the house she came. She wet maybe two times, before we started taking her outside to do her business and in no time she was house broken...much quicker than the little Pomeranian we have!! We had the hardest time putting that little girl back in the barn; she was like a pet and very entertaining....they say intelligence is measured by ease of training--if that is the case, this goat was more intelligent than that little house dog. Of course, not all goats are created equally...a few seem to not have brain one.

All you need to do is have a goat in trouble sometime and see how they look to their caretaker for help...it is almost a human look in their eyes begging for help....they recognize and know who to look at if they need something...not the vet, not my daughter, not the neighbor not my spouse, but they look right at me. They are very smart animals...I read somewhere where they are next to the pig and some dogs in animal intelligence, much higher than sheep, cattle or horses.

-- JimR (jroberts1@cas.org), December 28, 2000.

Ah, "The Look". Now that in itself is a prime example of a goat's intelligence. I'd had goats years ago but had to sell out due to a divorce/hard times. Several years ago I brought home my little rescue goat. Dh said "No Goats!" She gave him "The Look". Promptly ended up living in the house. (His idea, not mine, LOL. "But it's so cold outside") Then I bought my first reg. Nubian doe. Dh said, "NO MORE GOATS!" He got "The Look". She stayed. She had triplet kids. Dh said "You have to sell those kids!." Three babies gave him "The Look". Kids stayed. Three more does were purchased, 2 had kids, all stayed. Now dh just paid $600 for a new buck kid for me for Christmas and VOLUNTEERED to put his tractor outside so the goats can have a bigger barn than the one they're in. He comes to the goat barn every evening to brush everyone after they're done milking. All the goats have to do is walk up to him and give him "The Look". Goats are NOT dumb!

-- Lenette (kigervixen@wetv.net), December 28, 2000.

I watched our local goatman drop a wrench while working on his truck and his pet billy that was propped up watching him "fetched" it from the ground for him. Don't know if the goat was playing or saving him the bending, either way we both got a laugh out of it.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 29, 2000.

We raise Nubian Goats and they are definitely not dumb. Stubborn? Yes, but not dumb. They are creative problem solvers. We need to double latch all the gates to keep them in. There are few latches they can't figure out how to open.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), December 31, 2000.

Couldn't pass this up. Years ago we had a doe (well that is a whole nother story, because this doe was actually a hemaphrodite) named Hotlips. (Should have known all that blubbering she did when I bought her, was kind of bucky :) Hotlips hated all animals that came into her territory, hens, cats, ducks or dogs.

I heard a chicken in distress over the intercom, and went out to check. We saw no hens out in the barn upon our arrival, just all the does outside and Hotlips laying in the barn. She had her front leg oddly placed on top of an overturned small bucket, sure enough the hen was underneath the bucket. We had to treat the hen for heat prostration!

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 31, 2000.

Vicki, that's great!!! LOL. I have to wonder how in the world she got the chicken under the bucket! It reminds me of my sister's doe, Beulah, who hated cats. One day a cat walked too near to Beulah's kid, and she picked it up with her mouth and flung it away!

Beulah was a french alpine. We tethered all our goats at that time, and one day her pretty doeling strangled to death out in the woods. For months afterward, whenever we walked her past the place where her baby had died, she'd call out mournfully for her.

The other day, I was chasing a doeling who'd escaped from her pen. After about 15 minutes of pursuit, I was running out of patience. I finally got her cornered in the barn, but it looked as though she'd bolt past me. Just then, Sprite walked up to the doeling, and pushing her head against the kids rump, steered her to the gate of her pen and held her there! All I had to do was to open the gate and the kid ran right in!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), January 03, 2001.