Summary: Understanding Goat Behavior

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Understanding goats behaviour is vital to not only their health and wellbeing but also promoting the idea production conditions. In the management of goats it is vital to remember that they are herd animals, keeping them alone results in stress for the animal (Miranda-de la Lama and Mattiello, 2010). A study conducted in 1988 by Parrot found that goats respond far greater to gentle handling undertaken over a longer period of time. The gentle approach will 70% of the time see them drastically reduce/lose their flight instincts when cornered individually. It was also found in the study that goats can in fact have a visual memory storage of up to ten humans, therefore when managing goats it is vital to be gentle and kind alleviating stress and …show more content…

The heard comprised of 34 domesticated boer-cross goats. The exact ages of the animals were unknown however there was a diverse age range sighted from very young goats estimated at under a year to older mature goats. The study sight was located in a small fenced grassy paddock at The University of Queensland, alongside the shearing teaching shed (building 8230). The study commenced at 10.45am on Monday the 12th of March, the weather conditions were clear and sunny with a light breeze and a temperature of 21 degrees celsius. The surrounding area was calm with only a handful of people within sight. The data was collected using various sampling methods to record the goats behaviour. Activity one (first sampling method) conducted was Ad Libitum, in this method observations were recorded from a couple of metres away from the fence line of the goat paddock. An iPhone was used to set a timer for Five minutes and within that time everything of interest is recorded. During the Five minutes of Ad Libitum sampling the number of goats in the paddock were recorded, notes regarding the location of the paddock, recording of weather conditions, time of day, goats behaviour and interactions within the herd. Once the five minutes of Ad Libitum sampling was complete the second activity for the study - creation of the ethogram commenced. An Ethogram was developed in order to define the goats behaviours being seen and provide clarity and understanding for both the observers and readers. The ethogram was created with six categories: Feeding, locomotion, aggression, resting, inactive and waste elimination. The ethogram also allowed for consistency and accuracy throughout the data collection/sampling. An I-phone was used to take photos of the goats performing each behaviour in the Ethogram to provide further clarity as to what each behaviour category represented and was

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