I was clearing out the goat’s barn during a really nice, warm day the other day.
The weather has been a bit miserable of late, so it was really nice for them to get a nice sunny day out on the pasture with no rain.
As I was clearing out some old bedding, though, I stepped back and stood on something, and heard a yelp—I had trodden on my goat’s hoof.
I hadn’t heard it come in, which was really surprising; they aren’t quiet.
Not to mention the fact I thought they wanted to be outside.
It seemed to be okay, but I wondered if I could see tears for a second.
So, can goats cry?
Goats lack any tear ducts, and so they cannot cry tears. They can cry in the sense of a crying sound they make with their mouth, which you doubtless have heard if you own goats. But they cannot cry liquid tears like we and other animals do.
So, it depends a bit what you mean by cry, as they cannot cry tears but they can and do vocally cry out.
The range of emotions this kind of crying can express, though, is perhaps a bit higher than our own tears.
Sure, our tears do not only display sadness, but it’s still more limited and harder to interpret than human crying.
Do goats cry tears?
No, is the short answer.
Goats have no capacity to cry tears from their eyes, because they totally lack tear ducts.
This is not unheard of in the animal kingdom, though, for the most part, it does seem to be the exception—among mammals, at least.
Tear ducts serve a variety of functions.
Crying in humans is a fairly complex emotional tell, and can indicate a wide variety of emotions.
Typically, though, we associate crying with sadness and stress, and they are a great way to broadcast these emotions to other individuals.
Tears can also indicate overwhelming happiness, though.
But beyond that, tears serve the purpose of purging the eyes of foreign matter.
This is, most likely, the primary reason they originally evolved.
Eyes are very sensitive, and they need many layers of protection—eyelashes, eyebrows, tears.
Goats are actually at a substantially increased risk to their eyes due to their lack of tear ducts.
They naturally have other protections, but most other mammals do seem to have tear ducts.
There are some other examples, like rabbits and seals, which don’t.
All this said, though, goats do cry in a different way—with their voice!
What does it mean when a goat cries?
When a goat cries with their voice, it can mean a great variety of things.
Firstly, you’ll have to get used to the fact that goats are quite vocal animals, most of the time.
This isn’t always true, but you should prepare yourself for this if you’re thinking of getting goats.
These cries can range in volume and pitch, and different levels can indicate different things.
They will most often cry just to signal to one another that they are still there.
These kinds of cautious behaviors are very much built into herd creatures like goats.
Continuous signalling makes sure no one is worried of danger.
At the same time, they will use bleats and calls to signal danger.
Your goats really shouldn’t have to do this, but they may well bleat to indicate danger that isn’t actually there.
Goats are startled fairly easily.
They might also just be crying to indicate they are hungry, or that they are hurt.
Finally, mother goats very often cry to their kids if they are separated.
So, there are many reasons goats cry—but none of them are enough to make them cry with their eyes.
Do goats scream?
Yes, they do scream—although these sounds aren’t necessarily distinguishable from what I’ve considered ‘crying’ for the previous section.
People would describe a goat’s cry as being like a scream, and it is such a pitch for a number of reasons.
For one thing, it’s most easily recognizable.
Goats and sheep have very distinctive noises, that won’t get confused for another animal’s sounds.
Furthermore, the pitch and depth of the sound helps it cut through other loud sounds that might be in the environment.
Even if they were crowded around a busy watering hole in the wild, they would still be able to communicate with one another.
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Do goats have feelings?
Yes, of course goats have feelings.
Our own capacity for feelings did not simply spring up out of nowhere, fully formed in modern humans.
It’s developed for millions of years, and branched off to other evolutionary timelines.
Goats have a very wide range of complex feelings, as I’ve discussed, that might cause them to cry.
Fear, nerves, anxiety, excitement—these are all feelings goats are capable of expressing and experiencing.
There’s really not much use in thinking of any animals as not having feelings.
Though it’s not something we can ask them about, we can certainly interpret their behavior.
Goats do and do not cry, then.
They have no tear ducts to facilitate crying tears from their eyes, but they very much have the capacity to loudly cry using their mouth and throat.
If you were expecting to see tears of emotion flowing from your goat’s eyes as they do from your own, unfortunately, you are out of luck.
Animals express their emotions in very different ways, so you’ve got to learn to accept that—you can still interpret your goat’s emotional responses.