# Cart Goats



## DW Farms (Oct 5, 2007)

If anyone should have some training or equipment questions, Id be happy to help out. 

Thanks 
Adam


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## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

I'd like to see some goats in action photo's!


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## tiger408 (Jan 13, 2009)

Due to all the snow we have been getting lately.... I am seriously thinking of building a sleigh for my goats to pull !!!!


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## Happy Hank (Dec 20, 2008)

Maybe a sleigh would be a very good choice for goats to pull this time of year. Just add a sweeping rack of horns and a red suit for the driver!!

The new bright red harness I recently received would look sharp on a white goat.


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## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

Happy Hank said:


> Maybe a sleigh would be a very good choice for goats to pull this time of year. Just add a sweeping rack of horns and a red suit for the driver!!


LOL....... I can hear the song already...... 

"Grandma got run over by a packgoat, coming home from our house Christmas eve..........."


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## goingnutsmom (Nov 28, 2009)

Hey, this is what we were thinking of singing at next years Christmas Parade with our pack goat club, LOL!!

Debbie L.
www.freewebs.com/hillbillyfarm
www.freewebs.com/shastapackgoats


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## woodpeckerhollow (Dec 21, 2008)

Hey Adam!
Still have my harnesses you made for me, my one goat totally freaked out when I harnessed him and ran in circles around me, like longe-lining a horse, never could convince him to go in a straight line, but his brother Xavier is cart goat extraordinaire, just ask him!
How are you doing? You have been in my thoughts lately....
Rebecca in Fallon


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## DW Farms (Oct 5, 2007)

Hello Rebecca,

Ive been doing ok, This time is pretty hard, but Ill get thru it. Just really miss my Mother.

Thanks great about your harness goat, Im glad hes working out for you, Yea not all goats take to carting like we would like. 

Harness doing good for you?

Adam


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## woodpeckerhollow (Dec 21, 2008)

The harness is marvelous, and I am going to teach my doe to pull, she's short but stout and might do fine, although I might have to modify it a bit as she's smaller than the boy you made it for. I've also been teaching 2 of my horses to drive, as my friends where the horses live have draft mules and do the driving thing, which has been good. 
If I ever get a digital camera I'll take pics and send them to you!
Rebecca


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

Happy Hank said:


> Maybe a sleigh would be a very good choice for goats to pull this time of year. Just add a sweeping rack of horns and a red suit for the driver!!


My husband got ahold of a Santa suit one year and drove Cuzco in the Christmas parade of lights. It was awesome!
[attachment=1:23pyc49c]Cuzco_Santa.jpg[/attachment:23pyc49c]
A couple of years later I drove Cuzco in the Christmas parade! Unfortunately the photo doesn't show the colorful LED lights covering the cart and shafts and the lovely Christmas wreath on the back. The cart looked incredible!
[attachment=0:23pyc49c]Cuzco_XmasParade.jpg[/attachment:23pyc49c]


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## Shelly Borg (Nov 2, 2009)

What makes a good cart goat? The more I read on pack goats the more I think my sons goat will not really work out. He is short but strong at about a 100 lbs. Is taking to leading ok but will not follow us.He is smart and calm downs fast when upset.
Thank you
Shelly


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## ashkelon (Jul 25, 2009)

I am also wondering about what makes a good carting goat. 

Cabra is my lieutenant, and follows me around. Jeff is looking for a companion goat, and I think is slowly falling for a HUGE alpine x nubian wether who is calm and patient and quiet. He seems willing enough. Although he hasn't Cabra's "sparkle", he has a quiet sense of humor that is very funny. And he and Cabra hang together when we aren't there, so that's not going to be a problem.

I've done carting, skijoring, sledding and scootering with my dogs (including some very scary training runs with green greyhounds!). 

I know I have quite a wait before doing much with Cabra, he's just a yearling. I don't even consider backing my colts until they are 4, and only if they are well grown.


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

Shellyborg, if your goat won't follow you, maybe that's a good sign.  You don't want your cart goat to be too attached to the back of the line, as it were, because a cart goat needs to move out in front. We had a heck of a time teaching Cuzco that it was ok to be in front of us. Big as he is, he's a very timid goat at heart and has a hard time being in the lead. 

I only have experience with one (rather difficult) goat, so I'm not really the one to say which qualities are best for a cart goat. But I can say that we did succeed in getting our goat to pull despite the fact that he's very shy (and even aggressive) around strangers, he's terrified of dogs and loud noises, and he was very hard to bribe because for a long time I couldn't find a treat he would touch. 

Probably the biggest reason our goat was difficult was that he wasn't bottle-raised or even handled by people at all until we got him at 2-3 months. He was terrified of me for the first week or two after I got him, and I had to leave a 20-foot catch rope on him to have any hope of ever handling him. Even after several weeks where I spent lots of time holding him, petting him, talking to him, and practically singing him to sleep, he still was never as fond of me as he was of the horses he lived with. It also took several years for me to find anything I could use for treats. He was the pickiest eater I'd ever come across! 

So my main suggestion in looking for a cart goat is that he's friendly and bold and likes food treats. You want a goat that loves to take the lead. You also want to start him very young. I have a friend who decided that she wanted to try her 3-year-old wether out with a cart, but he's HUGE, and he's got enormous horns and an attitude to match them. He was impossible to work with because he was aggressive, and even worse, he was scared of the cart. It's impossible to make a goat that size stand still to look at a "scary" object if he doesn't want to. Phil and I had introduced Cuzco to the idea of the harness and cart when he was only about six months old. I used an old horse halter for a harness and even turned him loose in the barnyard with little things to drag behind him on a rope. Consequently, when he was older and much bigger, I didn't have to deal with a frightened animal that was also big enough to knock me down or drag me across the pasture!

I also got Cuzco used to shafts before he was big enough to pull the cart. I used a couple of dowel rods that I tied to the side of his horse halter/harness so he could get used to the idea of being confined, and also so he could learn how to turn between the shafts without the added difficulty of a having a vehicle attached to them. A goat must learn he can't bend around his turns when he's in shafts, but must cross his front feet to turn. This can be frightening the first time or two, so it's important to make sure he's used to this before he's hitched to anything else. 

Finally, find something your goat loves to eat. This was probably the biggest obstacle to my progress with Cuzco was that I couldn't find any treat he wanted. Sometimes the only way we could get Cuzco to pull the cart (without someone leading him) was to make sure he was following a horse. But about 3 years ago we finally discovered a kind of horse cookie that he couldn't resist, and training has been much, much easier ever since. Our goat finally has a reason to work--FOOD! I still have to get out and lead him past barking dogs and such (unless he's headed home), and he has to get a lot of cookie breaks when we're headed out, but at least now he has a reason to leave the barn. Even so, for parades I always make sure Cuzco is stationed behind horses because it's embarrassing to have to get out of your cart and try to pull, threaten, and bribe a stubborn,nervous goat past every noisy kid and flashing pinwheel he sees in the crowd. As long as there are horses ahead of him, Cuzco won't be left behind!


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## goingnutsmom (Nov 28, 2009)

Hey Shelly, with the little bit of carting we did last year, it was quite an learning experiance! Our Saanen doe who was one of my main packers would do anything for me, go anywhere for me etc. I just new she was going to be the most awesome cart goat and had great visions of her being all white and with a red christmasy harness and bells pulling a cart! Well, she flipped out and would either run or just stand and shiver, LOL! so that was nixed real fast! My other pack goat, Snickers, a toggenburg, and she was our herd queen in the yard and happy to bring up the rear in the pack line. We hooked her up to the cart thinking this was never going to work, and she took to it like a duck to water! She loved it!! She would perk up and look forward to going out in the cart with the kids or myself. So, you never know who is going to make the most awesome cart goat, LOL!


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## ohiogoatgirl (Jan 31, 2010)

I was wondering...
I read about "the goat man" and I want to go on a summer trip...
in some pictures he is in a wagon. I am guessing that he made it himself. it was not real tall but it was fairly wide and he had quite a few goats harnessed to it. do you know where I could find something like that. the trip wont be long so I was thinking it would only have to be 6x5ft or so...

here is a few links to a page about "the goat man" 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ches_McCartney
http://www.chaserl.com/goatman/

I cant find the other one that was really factual


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

ohiogoatgirl said:


> I was wondering...
> I read about "the goat man" and I want to go on a summer trip...
> in some pictures he is in a wagon. I am guessing that he made it himself... do you know where I could find something like that.


Hahaha!!! You're never going to find something "like that"! Only a homemade item could ever be anything even remotely "like that". 

But if you're looking for a wagon, I'd suggest the Amish if you have any in your area. They could probably do something custom-made for you, and they usually do good work at a decent price. Otherwise you may have to figure out a way to convert a small horse/pony wagon to your purposes, or you could just improvise something yourself like the Goat Man did.


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## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

Hoggers has a covered wagon kit. Pretty small to live in but it has the same look to it.

http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/ ... =22&page=1


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## ohiogoatgirl (Jan 31, 2010)

ya I am probably going to need something bigger than those. anyone know where I might find the axles, wheels,... (the bottom I mean)? I aint exactly a wheel maker... ya there are plenty of amish around!!! :lol:


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

Ohiogoatgirl, what about something like this: 
http://www.onlinesports.com/pages/I,GIA-767.html

It's 4' x 8', so about the size you're looking for. I'm sure you could modify it with rails or something along the sides. Sometimes they sell carts like this in Home Depot, although I'm not sure if they usually stock them quite this big. Good luck!


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## circle*s*acres (Dec 19, 2009)

Hey, just wanted to say that we got a harness from Adam for the kids ( both two and four legged) for Christmas. Wow! What Fun! We have two sleds that they can pull. One works much better than the other. Tonight we even had them pulling in loads of firewood with another of our sleds. It worked great! They were not big loads, but it sure beat us carrying it. I'm looking for some place to buy shafts and a tongue for them by spring so that we can hook them up to a wagon. By the way our goats all Nigerian Dwarfs.

Here are pics from tonight.


Sorry it won't let me upload them from photobuck.

We are having so much fun. I'm still walking along and leading the goats but they have come so far... Hope two have them working as a team this summer.


Liza


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## Hasligrove (Dec 10, 2008)

Here is a fun picture a lady I work with ran into via one of those online family tree info places. It is some relation of hers. Check it out...there are more cart goats in the backgound. Wish I could tell you more about the photo.


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