How to handle bucks?

Cliff I have read your position on bucks in another thread and I disagreed with you. I do not want a goat I have to avoid, tie to a fence, carrying a stick, or fear. Nor if they were to escape would I want to run around trying to catch them and get them back into the pen before they impregnant a too young doe. My boys will follow me any and everywhere as long as I have treats.
I will hop into my buck pen alone without any fear, being molested, butted and etc. Sometimes I am pawed at, my sleeve tugged for attention but that is fine. I can do hooves all alone in there, clean the pen and not need to have someone else help or wait for help and neither bother me ever.
One is bottle raised by me, one is dam raised and both love attention. No I do not want to smell like buck, so I dodge them if I am not taking a shower right after.

Smacking does cause long term effects. I have only butt smacked one goat a few times since she is horrible about biting others ears, she avoided me for the longest time and she was a bottle baby who loved attention.
If you ever see a dog who has been smacked, kicked or otherwise abused as soon as they see a raised hand or foot they get scared. I am not humanizing it, it is fact having adopted one such dog. It took her a long time to realize none of us would ever harm her and she turned out to be a great dog. ( R.I.P. Sydney )


Water guns are great, they do not like being wet and if you have a hose handy it is even better. When raising boys, wether or buck I never pet the tops of their heads, allow them to rub their head on me or push on me. If they try to jump up on me I either step back so they miss getting their hooves on me or I push them down and tell them no.
All are handled the way I want them to grow up. What is cute at 10 pounds is not cute at 100.

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Pinch his ears if he gets near you, squirt with a squirt gun, or grab his beard and hold it so that his chin is up in the air. Beards are very useful handles for buck control. :-)

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I do know it for a fact. The only aggressive buck I ever owned had been abused and smacked with a stick whenever he approached people. I never mistreated him, but he was still fairly aggressive. He attacked me one day when I was walking by with a shovel to clean the barn. I was some 6 months pregnant and could not afford to be attacked. I smacked him in the horns with the shovel as he came at me. Didn't faze him a bit. I must've smacked him 10 or 15 times before I was able to make an escape. It did not alter his behavior in the slightest. He went to the sale barn.

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For heavens sake I never said any animal should be abused. Now you people have turned me into a goat beater lol.

I don't hit my animals. Ever. They are trained to be respectful from the beginning because I understand how they think. I don't have any problems with any of my animals be it cows, horses, goats, dogs, roos or what have you that so many others seem to have. I make it a point to understand animal psychology.

When someone has trained an animal to be disrespectful (knowingly or not it's almost always the person who caused the situation) which equals dangerous in my book, you do what needs to be done to get respect. By that I do not mean beating them! Try squirting a pushy cow with a little squirty gun lol. Or sitting on them I feel the same about an aggressive buck. Usually not their fault they are they way they are but they are still dangerous. Either it needs to be fixed or they need to go to slaughter. I will not play around with a squirt gun with a dangerous animal. If that's what you want to do then have at it.

I had to beat him off of me, unless I wanted to lose my daughter and possibly be critically injured myself. I had no choice.

I know, I know, guys always say that you have to "command respect" from animals. My next bucks were not aggressive and I handled them the same way.

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You smacked him on the horns? In his mind you were fighting with him. How would you expect that to change his behavior? You can't hurt or even slow down a buck by hitting him on the head or horns.

Again I NEVER said animals should be beat on. NEVER. I never suggested carrying a stick and hitting them anytime they come close. You guys are jumping on a bandwagon here and I think you need to go back and read what I wrote.

That buck was ruined and beyond help and you should've never brought him home if you knew he was that way.

Look. When a buck is rearing up and coming down at you with his chin tucked in, it is pretty hard to get a good whack in anywhere except the base of the horns. Keep in mind, not everyone is 6 feet tall. And, he was bleeding when I was done and it slowed him down enough for me to move a few feet each time, until I was able to get away.

He wasn't ruined when I boarded him out (the place where he was smacked with sticks), he was when I got him back.

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Did I suggest ONE of those things? No. I said I do not make pets of bucks. I ignore them, I do not avoid them. Avoiding them makes them think you fear them. I do not tie them up, I do not carry a stick around and I do not fear them or they me. I do not, and do not allow anyone else, to pet them on the head or otherwise play with or fool with their heads. Bucks, like bulls, are not playthings.

Reading comprehension ftw.

I understand. Sorry someone ruined your goat for you.

I would have beat him to death myself so dont feel bad for giving him enough whacks to save yourself! Some animals are just plain bad, just like some people. Breed the best, eat the rest adn keep yourself safe while doing it, thats my motto lol.

Our Tigger is full of himself but he isnt mean so a few corrections should sort him out. Thanks for all the tips and hints on buck control.

True. Lots of livestock is ruined because when they were small and cute, folks let them get away with things that are not so funny when they are adult animals. Then, when the animals are large, the people are afraid of them, which just adds to the problem.


While the image is hilarious, some things do not cross over, hon. You are comparing apples to oranges in the previous statement. If an overly amorous and insistent human tries attacking me, there is a good chance that a dose of pepper-spray to the face might convince him that his attentions are unwanted. The same technique is unlikely to work on an overly amorous and insistent water buffalo. We are discussing goats here, not cattle. There is a forum for discussing behavioral, or other problems, one might have with cattle.

Now, if a newbie, or inexperienced but well intentioned person, CAUSED the problem, just how do you explain the difference to the same person, who is now scared of their animal, between appropriate and excessive force? Hmmmm?

I will assume that if you end up with a Great Pyr, or other Mastiff, male which behavioral problems that you will not fool around with any training techniques that don't involve inciting fear of you into the animal either? Our Newfie *females* weighed in at the same as a yearling Alpine buck, so when they got pushy, they certainly could be dangerous animals! I guess I should have taken a stick to their noses and taught them some respect!

Oh, wait! As any animal trainer can tell you, when you use pain to discipline an animal, you aren't teaching them respect, you are teaching them fear! And what every person wants is a 150-250lb animal that is afraid of them! THAT can't lead to anything bad, now can it?

Cliff, you are encouraging people to use bad training techniques to "fix" a problem they made with bad training techniques. Yes, goats, as mammals, respond to a LOT of the same techniques as dogs. If you wouldn't use a practice on a large dog to break them of a bad habit, don't use it on a goat.

And yes, some of the large dogs I have had, I have had to "take down" to deal with alpha issues. No pain involved, just trip up, get on the ground, and sit on them until they relax. If I can do that, when I was 105lbs, to a 200lb English Mastiff, and to a 200lb Nubian buck, then most of the folks here can manage it.

Using a stick to keep your goat from jumping on you is just as bad as using a stick to keep your dog from jumping on you. If one is unconscionable, so is the other.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

no help here. I've never had a mean buck. Mine come when called and are a little bit scared of us.

Don't lump all mammals in the same boat. Dogs have teeth, and they liberally use them on each other when one behaves poorly. Teeth, squirts of water, lemon juice, pinning, these are all positive punishment in behavioral theory. The difference is the severity of the punishment and the understand-ability of the punishment. Different methods of punishment are more appropriate for different species, or even different individuals within a species.

The difference between abuse and the careful application of positive punishment is timing and previous experience of the trainee. I only ever use positive punishment for something that is inappropriate social behavior within the species (something a pack/herd member would also punish) or a previously known command was disobeyed.

An abused dog does not understand why it is hurt. A disciplined dog is only punished in situations where learning can take place.

I carry a stick and occasionally have to use it, but my dog still thinks it's a toy and still comes to love on me when I'm holding it. She knows if I say "No" and she stops what she's doing and runs to me she'll get rewarded for having listened rather than punished for doing natural doggy things.

My dog is a fit 105 pounds, if she ever chose to fight me I'd have quite a time of it. We work constantly on maintaining my desired pack order and discipline. Good discipline keeps a dog safe, and gives him/her more freedom to go more places with the owner.

Cailann I have been training dogs longer than you have been alive

Fear is never an effective training tool. You have to understand the language of the particular animal you're dealing with and use their own psychology. For me hitting an an animal on the nose would always be reserved for a ram, cow or buck that was acting dangerously disrespectful. The objective is not to instill fear but to get their attention, sort of the "oh crap I guess I shouldn't do that" shocked and surprised reaction. Like when a human child isn't old enough to understand reasoning but is doing something really dangerous and a parent swats them on the butt to get their attention.

I understand what you're saying about how do you explain to an inexperienced person the difference between a correction and abuse. You are right.

I don't want to argue. I think I didn't communicate my thinking very well.