From a smelly serial escapee to a mob on the run, goats with attitude are living up to their reputation as Houdini on Australian farms.
It took station manager Richard Bulley three days to track down 26 adult and three baby goats after they escaped from a Woodstock horse yard near Townsville.
The animals travelled 31 kilometres after flipping up an electric fence to break out of the yard.
Mr Bulley lured most of the “ghost” goats into a horse float using buckets of food but had to jump out and grab the legs of “three or four”, wrangling them in with a horse halter.
“I’m used to horses and cattle, this is my first ordeal with goats,” he said.
“I never understood them, I wasn’t too sure about them and they gave me a bit of a hard time for three days.”
Urinating on their beards
Goats have been selectively bred for milk, meat, fleece and skins since being domesticated from the wild in Türkiye more than 10,000 years ago.
They arrived in Australia with the first fleet in 1788.
From pampered and prized stud animals to feral escapees, un-desexed male goats have one thing in common.
They all urinate on their faces and beards to create a stinky perfume to attract a mate.
The animal’s ability to squeeze through weak spots in fences has been driven by an intense desire to breed, beat boredom and broaden their diet.
In recent weeks, hundreds of people have followed Ziggy the escapee’s antics in Broken Hill, after ABC reporter Oliver Brown found him standing above the steps to the YMCA.
At Carters Ridge in south east Queensland, a roaming Saanen nanny goat stared down drivers on a country road before being taken in and safely reunited with its owners.
Little White Goat Cheese owner Karen Lindsay said it had taken years to perfect her fencing.
However, in one mass escape her hungry herd shredded everything but the basil in her vegetable garden.
“There’ll be a hole, one hole, and they’ll just make the hole bigger and bigger and bigger until [they go] ‘Hey guys, we can all get out,'” the Wamuran farmer laughed.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, what you put up, they will find a way — or there’ll be one.”
Not for everyone
Susan Swaney, from the Australian Veterinary Association, learned about the challenges of keeping goats the hard way.
She said her decision to buy Anglo-Nubians to tackle invasive blackberries on her land spectacularly backfired.
“They could literally climb anything and in the end, we had to get rid of them because they were getting into our neighbour’s place,” Dr Swaney said.
“They were walking along the top of the six-foot-high cattle yards, literally on the top rail, and then jumping down leisurely and trotting off again.”
Feral value
In 2023, Australia exported more goat meat than any other country and the industry was valued at $235 million.
A report by Meat and Livestock Australia revealed that most of that came from feral herds.
Dr Swaney said goats were impressive from an “evolutionary point of view”.
“Sheep are grazers, goats are browsers, they’re incredibly agile,” Dr Swaney said.
“The fact that a lot of the goat farming that goes on in Australia now is based on the harvesting of wild goats is indicative of how successful goats are at surviving in the wild.”
A total of 33,891 tonnes of goat meat was shipped last year, up by 55 per cent compared to 2022.
What cost?
The Invasive Species Council (ISC) has warned that feral goats are one of the worst invasive species because they stop bushland regeneration, overgraze, outcompete native animals, erode soils and stream banks, and reduce carbon storage in the landscape.
In a statement, ISC spokesperson Lyall Grieve said endangered wildlife threatened with extinction due to feral goats include the yellow-footed rock wallaby, the broad-headed snake, malleefowl and brush-tailed rock wallaby, as well as many endangered plants.
“The nation will never overcome the feral goat problem while they are treated as a commodity for some, rather than a pest,” Mr Grieve said.
Some people, like goat owner Rose Strong-Ramsey, praised the animals for not only being great livestock, but affectionate and constantly amusing companions.
She and her husband even used Lilly the goat as a ring-bearer at her wedding, dressing the doe up with a tiara, necklace and satin sash.
“We’ve had hundreds of goats over the years, so many personalities,” Ms Strong-Ramsey said.
She said they had names for all of them.
“[Like] the show champion, the massive milker, the coach who allowed anyone to learn to milk, the prissy fusspot, the vacuum cleaner,” she said.
“[And] the Houdini with nine lives, the quiet dependable one, the neurotic maniac, the goofball, the sassy brat, the triumph over adversity and the happy chappy.”
The goat owner also runs an online store selling goat memorabilia to help feed her beloved pets.
For anyone considering getting a goat, stud breeder Genevieve Rea recommended using a combination of wire and electric fencing.
“You don’t want gaps near the ground as they will wiggle under the fence,” Ms Rea said.
“And you either need a hot wire or have the fence a decent height or they pop their feet up and squash the fence down and wiggle or jump over.”
Stories from farms and country towns across Australia, delivered each Friday.
