How to Tame a Baby Goat

I remember when I first started getting into raising goats, and I saw some people on Facebook say they only wanted bottle babies. Why? Because bottle babies are the friendliest. I didn’t understand because I wasn’t bottle feeding my babies, and they were friendly.

Fast-forward a few years, when the kids are teens, and I’m not spending every day out in the barn with the baby goats, I understand. If you don’t work with the goats or tame them when they are young, they are skiddish and fast.

And now, at forty years old, bending over to chase a little goat isn’t as fun.

So if you are thinking about goats ( read this for beginners) and need to get a goat to become a bit friendlier, this is the post for you.

First thing, don’t chase it. Keep it in a smaller pen for the first week you bring the goat home. When you feed it, just hang out in the pen for 10-15 mins. Don’t try to pet it yet; let it get used to your presence.

You want to build trust. Most goats enjoy being pet and company, so don’t feel discouraged.

After that first day, bring a handful of grain into the pen. If you have a buckling, you don’t need to give it much grain, just a little handful to get him used to you. Bucklings and doelings can get away with a little bit more grain. When you have a whether goat they are more prone to urinary calculi.

Always make sure you have some baking soda and loose minerals for your goats.

After about a week of hanging out in the pen, move a little closer to him and see if he comes up to you. When he does that, that’s your opportunity to scratch them a bit under their chin.

That’s your sign that all will be well, and they will end up trusting you. Remember if you are the one supplying the food, they will most likely come around pretty quickly.

After about a week, you can let them out of the smaller pen and roam free with the rest of the herd.

Wondering which grain is the best? Right now, I have a mix of sheep and goats, so I use an all-stock feed. It’s also pretty cheap, under $11 per 50-lb bag at our local feed store.

If you only have goats, you can get a grain specifically for goats. The problem with all the stock is that copper levels are almost nonexistent in sheep, whereas goats need more copper.

The most important things to remember are patience and perseverance, which you already have if you are committed to raising goats and living this homestead life.

Never chase, keep them confined, and give them a little grain fed out of your hand. Before you know it, they’ll be chasing you around, in a good way.

If you are thinking about breeding goats, read this first.