Recues goat with an attitude and Horns, Please help

Well I had been going back and forth on the idea of getting goats for our little farm/homestead for the last couple of years. When I finally desisted to go for it I selected Nubians and wanted to start with 2-3 doeings. Well my friend thought is would be funny to put a goat in a friends yard as a prank, so he found a free goat on craigslist and picked it up. Long story short I get a phone call at about 6 in the morning asking if I could take a goat. So now we have a Nigerian Buck with horns and he really like to uses them. I need to get him dehorned but there are no local vets that see goats in my area. Ideas?

You can't get him dehorned at that age....well technically you CAN, but it will be very painful for him and there is a chance he could bleed out and die if not done properly.

With or without horns, he'll still have the attitude. While horns will make it hurt more, your problem is not his horns. It's that he is aggressive. For starters, he's a buck. Unless you plan on breeding, which I dont assume/suggest you do at this point since you're new to goats, he needs to be cut. At this age banding is out of the question since he is fully developed down there. So you'll need to get him surgically castrated.

You say there are no local vets, well that is true of many places. I have to drive 2 hours to see a good goat vet. It's part of life with animals. Just look around and I'm sure you will find a place within 2 hours of you that does castration. Its a pretty basic procedure.

Another thing, you have him by himself. Goats need to be kept with another goat, preferably 2 or more. The more goats the happier they are. That is a fact. Since he is by himself he is lonely and sees you as part of the herd. This is dangerous thinking, since you are the owner and are not in fact part of the herd, you are the boss of the herd. If they see you as part of the herd they will want to challenge you to make sure they have their place above you in the pecking order. So you need to remind them that you are the boss, and not to be challenged. Many people do this by hitting the goat or shoving it. DONT do that. That reinforces their thinking that you are, in fact, a part of their herd. Since another goat would react in a similar way. What i do is I grab them tightly by their collar and just say NO. That way, it enforces the fact that I have control over them, but in a non violent way. I have heard other people spray them with water. One of my goats is really dependent on humans and calls whenever someone walks by. So what I did was when she tried to challenge me I simply walked away. She got really upset no one was there paying attention to her and I think she learned her lesson.

We are getting two doeings but they wont be ready till June, do you think it would be safe to put him in with my kids 4-H lambs? they are close to his size.

Lexie Lou said:

We are getting two doeings but they wont be ready till June, do you think it would be safe to put him in with my kids 4-H lambs? they are close to his size.

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It really depends on the situation. I have known goats to get along with cows, sheep, and pigs, and even chickens. But it really depends on the individuals disposition and not just size. I must say though you may run into issues with him being horned with the lambs. They dont have horns to defend themselves and it can be dangerous. I have seen dehorned goats in with horned goats and it was never an issue but I would feel personally better if they were either all polled/debudded or horned.

Another thing I must say. Copper is toxic to sheep. Goats need copper and will get copper deficiency without it. That may make feeding difficult. Just something to keep in mind.

If it were me I would feel safe having him in with a larger, horned wether. Thats really what I would do.

If he full grown we have had success removing horns with castration bands. We recently did 3 of mine. It can be a bit painful on some goats, but so can any dehorning methods. I have had goats with horns break other goats jaws. We recently did one of my favorite goats because he started to challenge me, and was trying to butt me, so he's one who's horns were removed.

Don't mix goats and sheep as they have different mineral requirements as we as being behaviorally different.

We are building a new lam pen that boarders his pen, so I am hoping that will help him not be as lonely. I would like to keep him long enough to get him healthy the person who had him did not feed him well and from the looks of it Never touched his hoofs. I do really want to have him dehorned, because the only place he will be able to go is the butcher if they are not removed. I know goats are heard animals that do not like being by themselves, but this was not an animal I selected, this is one I saved from being dropped at a shelter.

Goats can be dehorned at any age. You can saw them off or you can use bands. I know because I have done so many many times. I had a dairy and I couldn't have horned goats for any number of reasons. Fiasco Farms used to have detailed instructions on how to band horns on their web site. Look and see if it is still there. As I remember, they took a scalpel and made an incision clear around the horn in the skin below the horn itself as low as you can next to the skull. The elastrator band was applied in the incision. That way it could not creep up and by banding that low regrowth is unlikely. If anyone wants to know how to remove horns, PM me. It is messy, but done right there is little chance of infection or death. Of all the mature animals we removed horns from, we had only one fatality, and that was a sheep.

For any dehorning, give a tetanus antitoxin shot if the animal has not been immunized against tetanus. In fact, it is cheap insurance to do so anyway.

We just put on multiple bands, than we use a horse hoof pick to work them down as far as possible on the horns trying to get them down on the base, than we wrap electric tape around them to hold the band's down so they don't roll up. We use 4 bands per horn. 4-6 weeks later they fall off. The goats has to be older than a year, preferably 2 or else the horns grow too quickly and it doesn't work.

We did trim his feet and he got much nicer, from the look of him they had never been done. Poor guy had rocks stuck up in his hoofs that had been wrapped in the rolled over hoof wall.

Question on Banding Horns, should we try banding the tops first so they are let likely to snag on any thing once the band the Base of the Horn or is that over doing it? thank you

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