Goats of different ages wag their tails for various reasons. Mostly you will notice baby goats wagging their tails or adult females. There aren’t any complicated reasons behind this, and there is nothing to worry about if you see your goats wagging their tails. Down below, we have described the reasons in detail according to their ages and gender.
Why Do Goats Wag Their Tails?
The main reason why goats wag their tails is because of arousal, flies, and affection. Read below for an overview of each one.
As a Sign of Arousal
When an adult female goat is wagging their tails, it almost every time means that she is in heat and sending signals to Bucks that she wants to mate. A buck can smell the scent of a turned on goat from over a considerable distance. The tail wagging could be because they are happy, but if they tail wagging is accompanied by
- Vaginal discharge – white and sticky like mucous
- Swollen vulva
- The doe makes more noise – increased vocals
It means that she wants to mate. To deal with that, you need to arrange a non-castrated buck to breed with her.
Flies/Insects
Flagging due to flies or insects is rare, and mostly occurs in summers or humid areas where the flies irritate the goats and cattle. The goats in irritation flag their tails to swat away the flies.
Affection to Their Owner
Believe it or not, but just like the canine, goats can also wag their tails when they want to show love to their owner. You will notice that they will start flagging their tails quickly after seeing you. This means they are excited to meet you. Flagging will be faster if they see their owner after an interval, such as after a week or a month.
Basically, goats are very social animals, just like dogs and cats; therefore, they feel good when they are in the company of those they aren’t scared of. They show their emotions by flagging their tails.
Why Younger Goats Wag their Tails?
Identification
When a doe gives birth to baby goats, she identifies them by the smell of their behinds. The scent remains etched in her brain, so if a stranger goat comes near for feed, she violently butts the kid. They are very possessive, so they will feed only those kids whose scent they recognize.
So, kids, while going to eat, will wag their tails, so it is easier for their mother to identify the smell and not butt them. People have also tried to experiment by spraying perfume and masking the odor, but it never works.
Wagging- A Sign of Contentment/ Happiness
Like dogs, baby goats wag their tails out of happiness or satisfaction or, furthermore, to show affection. They do this usually when they see food or someone they are attached to, such as their mothers or their owners.
However, this does not mean they want to be scratched, which is the case in other animals; they’re just overly excited; hence they wag their tails. Scratching them can lead to violent reactions, so beware of doing that. As they get older, they let go of this habit unless they are females who do it for a specific purpose.