Goats are not widely considered beasts of burden today.
If we want an animal to carry things, we have horses and donkeys—though the ethicality of this is certainly debatable.
But this hasn’t always been the case.
In the past, goats were indeed used to pull carts with a variety of cargo and passengers.
Unsurprisingly, goat carts were never really considered an important method of transportation.
They were just a novelty, and though they are still used in some places today, it is far less common.
That said, it was never hugely common, to begin with.
Let’s find out more.
What was a goat cart used for?
They were mostly used just to pull people or children as a means of entertainment.
Goats do not respond to commands as readily as horses and donkeys do, so it was just always more expedient to have these animals pull carts.
Certainly, if you wanted any amount of cargo moved with speed, you would do it with a horse or a donkey.
Goats cannot pull a great deal of weight, though there are stories that fruit and vegetable merchants used goats to pull their produce around.
The most common use, then, was just to entertain children.
Many families kept goats as livestock, so they could also double as a way to entertain your children.
But this would only be for very young children, as goats aren’t really strong enough to pull multiple mature people.
They also typically wouldn’t go far.
There are also some examples of goats being used to draw wheelchairs for veterans of wars.
Europe was involved in a great many wars during this time, and thus you ended up with a lot of disabled men.
Again, though, goats were not in widespread use for this purpose.
It’s remarkably difficult to get goats to pull anything reliably, let alone a wheelchair all the time.
So, realistically, goat carts were just entertainment for children, with some suggested but not widely used other applications.
When you look to the 19th Century, you often find many such novelties used to entertain both the rich and the poor.
How much can a goat pull in a cart?
The short answer is not a great deal!
As I said, there are some examples of goats being used to draw very small amounts of cargo.
In terms of weight volume that a goat can pull, a fully mature buck can pull around 25-35% of its total body weight.
This should be up to a maximum of 50 pounds per goat. So, with multiple goats, you could potentially pull a reasonably large load.
However, the other issue is getting the goats to do what you want to do.
Horses are much more pliable and will do what you want them to do.
There’s not much guarantee a goat will.
So, while a goat might be able to pull up to 50 pounds, they just don’t have the temperament to do it reliably.
Can goats pull carriages?
Can goats pull a carriage?
No, is the short answer.
If we take a carriage to be the kind of thing you would ordinarily seen drawn by many horses, then goats just aren’t strong enough to pull such a thing.
Even if it had no human passengers on board, then it would still be too heavy.
Carriage drawing horses generally have to be trained from a very early age to be able to draw carriages, since it requires the cooperation of up to four horses.
Goats just can’t cooperate or be trained in this way. Even if they could, they wouldn’t have the strength to draw a carriage.
But how do you train a goat to pull a cart?
How do you train a goat to cart?
It’s going to be a gradual process, and it’s worth noting that goats don’t always take to the training.
Their personalities are sometimes just too individual, and they won’t do what they don’t want to do.;
That said, there’s a basic method you can get to attempt to teach your goat to pull a cart.
You need to start off with a very light load. Attach a cart to the goat and get him to walk with you a short distance.
Pile on the positive reinforcement here, let the goat know they are doing a good job.
Make sure you pick a strong goat.
Add some weight to the cart gradually, to get the goat used to pulling heavier loads.
If you start too heavy, the goat may get discouraged.
Build up slowly over several sessions, and they won’t even notice you adding the weight.
It will take some time, but that’s how any training works, really.
You’ll need to be patient and diligent.
Goat carts are certainly an intriguing historical novelty, then.
The image of goats pulling chariots was somewhat common in world mythologies, and so in some ways you might see this as a modern extension of that image.
In any case, they were never really employed as anything more than a fun curiosity and way to keep children entertained.
Goats are not the best beasts of burden.