Losing a goat is never any fun, and it’s understandable to panic—but don’t worry, there are plenty of things you can do to help find your goat once again.
There are a few key things you should always do when looking for your goat, and a few extra things tips to help with those goats that really don’t want to come home.
Hopefully, armed with the steps we’ve laid out here, you can bring your goats home again.
Let’s get started.
Get grain or food
Your best bet for attracting a goat back to you is offering it food.
Depending on what you feed them, this could be more or less easy.
Ideally, if you have grain, fill up a bucket with grain, and take that out on the hunt with you.
Try to cover the immediate area as soon as you notice it is missing.
It won’t go far in a shorter time period.
Show them the grain
When you spot them, approach slowly, and make sure that they see the grain.
Have the bucket out and shake it lightly if that’s something they’re familiar with.
The worst thing you can do at this point is startling the goat, so don’t make any loud noises, and do not run towards it.
It will be able to outrun you, and if it’s big enough, catching it wouldn’t do any good anyway.
In general, it’s a good idea to train your goats to come towards you when you have grain.
This makes finding them much easier when they do get lost.
Next, take some of the grain into your hand.
Offer grain
With grain in hand, slowly approach the goat, and present it with the grain from your hand.
Ideally, you can put the bucket down at this point—this may also be a good tactic, to try and get the goat to go for the bucket.
You’re going to need to grab the goat, now, so figure out what you’ll grab it by.
Horns may seem like the obvious choice, but they can still break, so be aware of that.
Don’t grab too hard or you could startle the goat and it might run away.
Try to get a knee in front of the goat’s shoulder blades, and ideally press it against something, like a tree.
If you can, bring someone along to help out—this will make a world of difference.
Start leading it back by keeping a firm grip on it and continuing to allow it to eat.
Using toys
So, the steps we’ve outlined above is probably your best bet of getting your goat back.
But there are some other important things to consider.
Toys are a good option, especially for younger goats.
Anything bright and colorful that will seem interesting to your goat has a good chance of convincing it to come back to you.
If the lost goat has a favorite toy or one it plays with a lot, then be sure to take that one with you, as well as the food.
This increases your chances of the goat being interested and coming over to you.
As I mentioned, attracting goats will be a different affair depending on what kind of goat it is.
Let’s look at how to attract bucks, does and kids.
Attracting bucks
Of all the goats you can lose, bucks are going to be the most difficult to catch.
They are aggressive and assertive, not wanting to play by your rules, especially once they’re out.
Your best bet is going to be using females to attract them.
Adult bucks have a very high sex drive, so if you can take some females and leave them near where the buck might have gone, this will attract them.
You can tether the does down for a short while.
If this doesn’t work, try food again, and be very gentle with the buck—it will react aggressively otherwise.
Attracting does
Attracting does is going to be much easier, but still not easy.
For the most part, you should be able to attract does with food.
If they have a favorite food, take that with you, otherwise, grain or something like fruit or vegetables should do the trick.
If the doe has recently kidded, this should make catching them a lot easier—really, you just need to wait for them to come back.
Attracting kids
Kids are naturally very inquisitive, so getting them to return home should be easy.
They may explore but they will quickly become scared when away from their mother, so you are almost certain to find them somewhere nearby.
Be sure to look carefully.
As with mothers who have kidded, kids will be eager to return to their mothers as mothers to their kids.
Take the mother with you if you can, and you should be able to find the kid much more easily.
How to catch a goat depends a bit on what kind of goat it is, then.
You’re likely to have more trouble bringing a buck home than you are a kid or a doe, or indeed a wether.
In any case, though, you can bring them home using one of the methods we’ve mentioned here, but your best bet against keeping your goats at home is to stop them from escaping in the first place—a good, high fence, and plenty of food and water to keep them happy.