Goats

Goat Facts

Classification:

• Kingdom: Animalia
• Subkingdom: Bilateria
• Phylum: Chordata
• Subphylum: Vertebrata
• Class: Mammalia
• Order: Artiodactyla
• Family: Bovidae
• Subfamily: Caprinae
• Tribe: Caprini
• Geographical location: Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Oceania, Australia
• Habitat: Dry mountains or hills
• Gestational period: Around 5 months
• Life span: Fourteen to twenty years
• Special anatomy: Permanent, hollow horns, ruminant stomach, very tough hooves

Goats are herbivorous artiodactyls—even-toed ungulates—of the family Bovidae, genus Capra, which usually have hooves and hollow horns. They are also ruminants, chewing and swallowing food, regurgitating it, and chewing and swallowing it again. This cud chewing allows them to get the most nutrients possible from the low-quality foods they eat.

Wild goats are mountain dwellers, adept at leaping between rocks, sure-footed due to their hoofs. The hoofs have a hard outer layer and a softer inner layer that wears away quickly and leaves hard edges useful for climbing. Domesticated goats, raised for milk, meat, and leather, retain many of these characteristics. Swiss goats, the most common domesticated variety, have pointy ears and horns, while Nubians are hornless.

Physical Characteristics of Goats

Most adult goats weigh up to 125 pounds. They are not as large as sheep, which they resemble. Their horns are twisted flat and turn backward. Their hoofs are divided in two (cloven). Males are called “rams” or “billies,” while females are called “does” or “nannies.” Males emit strong odors during mating season. Males and most females have chin beards, leading to the name “goatee” for the similar style of facial hair in men. Goats are normally covered with straight hair, but some grow wool, such as angora goats. Their coats are red, brown, tan, or white. Goats find enough to eat on poor, dry land where horses, cows, and sheep would starve. Adult female goats reach lengths of 2.5 to 3.5 feet and are approximately 4 feet at the shoulder; they weigh between 100 and 120 pounds. Males are 20 percent larger and heavier than females and have longer horns.

Domesticated goats derive from ten wild goat species. They live on hills and mountains and are either goat antelope or true goats. All except the Rocky Mountain goat inhabit Europe and the Asian Himalayas. Rocky Mountain goats and chamois are goat antelope, having physical characteristics of both goats and antelope.

Types of Goats

Rocky Mountain goats are goat antelope inhabiting mountains from the American Northwest to Alaska. They live in snowy, craggy habitats and are excellent climbers, due to hoofs having soft pads with hard rims that work well on snow, ice, or rock. Rocky Mountain goats are about three feet tall at the shoulder, with black horns, white, shaggy pelage, and goatees. They eat any plants available and are solitary, except during mating.

Chamois goat antelope have light brown pelage in the summer, which turns dark in winter. The males’ deadly curved horns are eight inches long. Chamois are about the same size as Rocky Mountain goats and have similar hoofs. They live above mountain tree lines in Europe, Asia, and New Zealand and prefer eating grass and lichens. During winter, they eat pine needles and bark. Females form herds of up to one hundred, while males live alone except to mate. Chamois battle for mates, and defeated males often die after their belly and throat are ripped open by the victor’s horns.

Angora goats, true goats, have body shapes like domesticated Swiss goats. They inhabit Turkey, South Africa, the United States, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. Horned and bearded, their long, thick hair is used in mohair cloth. Angora goats grow approximately 80 percent of the size of Rocky Mountain goats. They live on hillsides, eating woody vegetation and grass.

Nubian goats, hornless true goats, have short hair and droopy ears, and the males have goatees. Adult males weigh up to 180 pounds, while females weigh up to 140 pounds. Males are about five feet tall at the shoulder. Their coats are black, tan, or red, sometimes with white spots. They eat briars, thistles, and brambles, as needed, with their tough mouths and teeth. Their splayed hooves aid climbing hills. Nubians live in large herds, and males fight for mates.

Goat Life

Goats prefer eating leaves and grass but can eat thistles, briars, and brambles with their tough mouths and teeth. Thus, they can survive where soft vegetation is scarce and other herbivores starve. Goats are sociable and live in groups of from a dozen to thousands of individuals.

In the wild, males fight for mates and may die in such battles. Mating usually occurs in the spring among domesticated goats, while wild goats generally mate in the fall. The goat gestation period is about five months and yields one to four young, nursed for six months. Young goats are born with hair, eyes open, and can run and jump within twelve hours of birth. Goats can live for fourteen to twenty years.

There are several commonalities between domesticated goats and domesticated dogs. Much like dogs, goats are sociable animals that live in groups, have a great deal of intelligence, and will appeal to humans nearby for assistance through their gaze if a task proves too difficult for them to complete.

A number of goat breeds are raised for meat, milk, leather, and landscaping. Goats are fine milk producers, and the milk is often used to make cheese. Their milk is sweet, nourishing, and easy to digest. It also has more fat and protein than cow milk and is helpful to persons with digestive troubles. More people throughout the world use goat milk than cow milk. Toggenburg and Saanen Swiss goat imports are popular milk goats in the United States. Toggenburgs are brown, with light side stripes, while Saanens are short-haired and white or cream-colored; both breeds produce around five quarts of milk per day. Goatskins also make high-grade leather; for instance, “Morocco leather” is chamois skin. Angora and cashmere goats are raised for their coats, which are used to make wool.

In the twenty-first century United States, a number of individuals and businesses like golf courses have maintained herds of goats in order to remove invasive, toxic, or otherwise undesirable plants and graze the grass. Certain states have even offered tax incentives for land management using goats, as it is an environmentally friendly practice, and goat rental companies have been established to offer this landscaping service.

Principal Terms

artiodactyls: hoofed mammals with an even numbers of toes

gestation: pregnancy

herbivore: an animal that eats only plants

keratin: a tough, fibrous major component of hair, nails, hooves, horns

ruminant: a herbivore that chews and swallows plants, which enter its stomach for partial digestion, are regurgitated and chewed again, and reenter the stomach for more digestion.

ungulate: any hoofed mammal

Bibliography

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Hetherington, Lois, and John G. Matthews. All about Goats. 3rd ed. Ipswich, England: Farming, 1992.

Lavine, Sigmund A. Wonders of Goats. New York: Dodd, 1980.

Lidz, Gogo. "She’s Got Your Goat!" Newsweek Global 164.16 (2015): 62–63. Business Source Complete. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.

Nawroth, Christian, Jemma M. Brett, and Alan G. McElligott. "Goats Display Audience-Dependent Human-Directed Gazing Behaviour in a Problem-Solving Task." Biology Letters 12.7 (2016): n. pag. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.

Porter, Val, and Jake Tebbit. Goats of the World. Ipswich, England: Farming, 1996.

Staub, Frank J. Mountain Goats. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1994.