• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Chickens
    • Goats
    • Small Scale Farming
    • Gardening
      • Recipes
      • Food Preservation
    • Frugal Living
  • Shop
    • The Ultimate Planner for Breeding Goats
    • Homesteading e-Books & Online Courses
    • Raising Goats eCourse – The Basics (from choosing your goat through daily care)
    • Profitable Homesteading Guide & Worksheets – Make Money Homesteading
    • Couponing for Beginners Planner – Learn How to Start Couponing
    • Budget Tracking Worksheets – Plan and Hit all Your Budgeting Goals!
  • Nigerian Dwarf Goats for Sale
    • Nigerian Dwarf Goats
  • About

Mranimal Farm

All About Silkies, Nigerian Dwarf Goats & More

By MrAnimal Farm 3 Comments

Goat Terminology – Key Goat Terms You Need to Know

Goat Terminology

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.

Filed Under: Daily Care, Goats Tagged With: getting started, goat terminology, goats

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Winona L Leos-Condon says

    at

    was directed to the goat terminology page to find out about milk stars but there is nothing on the page about it.

    Reply
    • MrAnimal Farm says

      at

      Sorry about that. We do have milk star information on our page about how to read a pedigree

      Reply
  2. Lizzie says

    at

    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!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Welcome, we are Kristin & Justin and this is MrAnimal Farm! We are excited to have you join us!

We love to share our knowledge on frugal living, homestead livestock and gardening. Learn more about us here.

Search MrAnimal Farm

Popular Posts from MrAnimal Farm

incubator with olive, blue, light brown, pink, brown, and chocolate colored eggs

Chickens That Lay Colored Eggs

chickens eating apples

Can Chickens Eat Apples?

Bose For Goats

salmon faverolle

The Salmon Faverolle Chicken: The Ultimate Guide

Footer

Amazon Affiliate Disclosure

We are a participant in the Amazon Services, LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Privacy Policy

For details on our privacy policy click here.

Copyright © 2021 · MrAnimal Farm