Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
goats with horns are kept together in the same herd, they should be watched carefully. A dom-
inant or aggressive goat may use its horns to injure others.
Dairy goats and goats used for shows routinely have their horns removed because it makes
them much easier to handle and removes a possible source of injury. Goats with horns cannot
fit their heads easily into milking stands or through feeding racks fitted with keyholes, slots
with an opening at the top to allow the head to enter, to control feeding behavior. They are
more likely to get their heads caught in a fence or a hole in an enclosure or building wall.
Horns are removed with a relatively simple procedure called disbudding when goats are
young and the horns are still buds. This is the safest horn removal option. Removing larger
horns as the goat ages is a surgical procedure that should only be performed by a vet and is
painful and traumatic for the animal. It requires removing skin from the goat's forehead and
leaves holes that take time to heal.
Teeth
A goat has front teeth only in its lower jaw; the upper jaw has a hard, tough pad called a dent-
al palate.
When a kid is born, it often has its first two front milk teeth and sometimes the first four have
already broken through. By its third month, all the milk teeth have broken through. At about
15 months, the adult teeth begin to appear, and by the time the goat is 3 ½ to 4 years old, it
has all its adult teeth. An adult goat has 12 molars in the upper and lower jaws and eight front
teeth in the lower jaw. A goat with all its adult teeth is “aged.” When the goat is 5 years old,
the front incisors begin to spread apart and wear down, and eventually they break off and fall
out. A goat with missing front teeth is “broken mouthed.” When all the teeth are gone, the
goat is a “gummer.” It is possible to tell the age of a young goat by looking at its teeth, but
once it is more than 5 years old, the wear and condition of the teeth may vary according to its
diet and the location in which it lives. A coarse diet wears teeth down faster than a soft diet.
