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Herding Goats


Stinky
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Hi I'm new to the board and posted this to general discussion( thanks so much to those who resoponded). I was told this is a better place to post something like this ....

 

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I'm new to the board and pleased to have found it.

 

I have had Maggie the BC for 2 years after rescuing her from a local family. She is now 5 years old. She and I took some basic training clinics for a few sessions at Red Creek farm here in Townville, SC. My wife and I than purchased 4 "dog broken" Tunis sheep that Maggie eagerly and easily was able to control in any situation I chose to put her in. We added a few small goats for a time to make a grand total of 7 animals for Maggie and I to move around. The additional goats were a bit of a challenge for Maggie but she fairly quickly dominated them and had control. We have since given back the goats( they were to aggressive during feeding time for my wife) and have also given away the Tunis sheep as we would like to get hairless sheep in the near future.

 

phew...now to my actual question....

 

We have a friend who has 45 Newbian (spelling?) goats and has kindly placed eleven of them with us so that Maggie ( and our great pyrenees Zoie) have something to do and to also fatten her goats a bit on our pasture. These goats have never been herded by anything except a human. They do not act as I have experienced so far and Maggie cannot move them.

 

Instead of turning away and moving when Maggie comes up on a fetch they circle the wagons, face her and do not back up. She has a reaonably strong low crouching approach when coming onto them however she does stand up when she is a few feet away which looks weak to me. I than escalate her to more aggressive actions including a bit of gnashing teeth and charging but the goats actually are strong enough to charge back at times. They're not willing to move through her to get back to the barn so they have enough respect of her to not run her over.....but....they do not budge from their spot.

 

Is this just the nature of goats ?

 

Does Maggie just not have enough "power" to move this group of animals ? Which is fine if true and leads me to the next question which is should I stop trying because Maggies continued failure to move them might damage her confidence when we get our next group of animals ?

 

Is there something different I should be oing to train the new animals to a herding dog ?

 

I'll do some reading in the archives as I'm sure somewhere in there is some info that will help me.

 

Any advice would be welcome. I'm looking forward to this newfound forum.

 

Be well,

 

Mike

A.K.A. Stinky

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well, I had goats, one Nuibian. a couple la manchas, an alpine and 13 pygmy's. They just don't flock together like sheep. Seem to scatter all over. At least that was the case with mine. And if you ever get an angora, it'll get it's head stuck in the fence.

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