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If you are just starting with goats, or even if you have been around goats for a while, there will often be times you run across terms that you just don’t know what they mean. Goat terminology is important to know and understand especially when you are just getting started with goats.
Like most things, once someone is “in” it, they will throw around terms that are not necessarily common place with the assumption that everyone knows what they are talking about.
Here we have put together a short list of some common goat terminology:
Wether – a wether is a male goat that has been fixed and cannot mate. They make great pets.
Buck/buckling – a buck is a male goat that has not been fixed and can mate. They tend to be a little yucky as they have a whole slew of behaviors to attract girls 🙂 A buckling is a young in-tact boy.
Doe/doeling – a doe is a female goat. Doelings are young girls.
Polled – a goat who is polled is naturally hornless.
Disbudded – this is a goat who has had it’s horns removed at a young age.
Scurs – these are small pieces of horn that have grown back or were not fully removed at disbudding.
Bottle Baby – this is very much what it sounds, it is a baby goat that is being bottle fed instead of staying with it’s mom.
Open – this is a term describes female goats that are not pregnant.
Scours – this is basically diarrhea.
Weaned – this is when a baby goat is no longer nursing from it’s mom.
Rut – this is when bucks are ready to breed. They will go through periods of time when they have a lot of hormones raging.
Banding – this is a way of fixing a male goat.
CL/CAE/TB/Johne’s/Brucellosis – all diseases that goats can get, most of which can be tested for to make sure your herd is clean.
Cocci – a sickness that can cause diarrhea.
Rumen – part of the goats digestive system.
Kidding – when a goat has babies.
Freshen – to come into milk. For example, a First Freshner is a goat who is milking for her first time.
Did we miss any goat terminology that you need to know about? If so, drop them in the comments below and we will help you out.
Also, if you are interested to learn more about getting started raising goats, please check out our eBook. Or, our Getting Started with Goats eCourse.
Winona L Leos-Condon says
was directed to the goat terminology page to find out about milk stars but there is nothing on the page about it.
MrAnimal Farm says
Sorry about that. We do have milk star information on our page about how to read a pedigree
Lizzie says
I raise fainting goats and I don’t know if these terms are universal. But here’s a few I’ve come across and had to ask google about.
Marbled or speckled eyes.
Marbled is blue in center of eye and ring of brown around, or vice versa.
Speckled is specks of brown in blue eyes or vice versa.
And I think blue colored goats are goats with dark gray coloring or pure blue if they have all dark gray colored hair?
Thanks for clearing up these terms. Great post!