# Goat Charioteers in the Homecoming Parade



## Damfino

Rye Homecoming was today and Phil and I hitched up our chariots for parade! Phil wore his Thor thunder god outfit. The theme this year was pirates, but we didn't know that so we went with the Thunderbolt theme since we can't go wrong with that. The football team is the Rye Thunderbolts or "T-Bolts" as they are known locally. 

















I went with sort of a lady Thor outfit. The T-Bolt's colors are purple and silver so I was going to wear a purple cape with my silver dress until I realized that we used all the purple material to line the coffin in our Halloween goat hearse last year. So I found a leftover scrap and made a sash instead. The wonderful purple wig came from Phil's mother and it was perfect for the occasion! 

















Finn and Sputnik were pretty good considering how little we've driven them lately. I think we've only been out once since the International Goat Days Festival six weeks ago. Sputnik thought it was a race, not a parade, and he kept trying to trot ahead and pass everyone. Luckily he's very good at the "whoa" command but it meant that we went along in short bursts where we trotted and then screeched to a halt before trotting on when the parade got far enough ahead.









Finn took a more leisurely attitude about the whole thing and almost got left behind a couple of times. Finn loves attention and doesn't mind lingering in the street while people admire him and take pictures.


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## groovyoldlady

That is totally awesome! LOVE it!!!!!


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## ksalvagno

That is excellent!


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## Suzanne_Tyler

That is great


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## wifeof1

That is soo cool.


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## New-goat-mom

I love that so much!


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## toth boer goats

Love it.


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## Goatzrule

So jealous, would love to do that with mine


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## Deborah Haney

Looks great! How do Finn and Sputnik do with their bits? Is it possible to drive goats without bits or is that standard practice? I've been toying with the idea of getting a kiko wether for driving and packing.


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## Damfino

Goatzrule said:


> So jealous, would love to do that with mine


Why not? You only live once!


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## Damfino

Deborah Haney said:


> Looks great! How do Finn and Sputnik do with their bits? Is it possible to drive goats without bits or is that standard practice? I've been toying with the idea of getting a kiko wether for driving and packing.


They do great with bits. In fact, Sputnik does much better in a bit. His roman nose is not conducive to keeping a halter centered in the right spot, and with that prominent bridge he is also prone to getting chafed. He tends to shake his head a lot when I drive him in a halter, and then the halter slides down his nose and makes him sneeze and then he gets angry. Finn does fine in a halter, but any halter will chafe after a while. They're not designed for side-to-side pulling and tend to rub the hair off the face. When we drive teams I can't use halters. The sliding action of the halters messes up the distances between my stub lines and then the goats can't turn and stop together as a team because they don't feel the same rein pressure at the same time. I use mullen mouth bits which are very mild and can slide smoothly back and forth through their mouths.

As for that kiko wether--go for it! I think everyone should have a goat for driving and packing!


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## wifeof1

Do you have any pictures of you driving a team?


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## Damfino

Someone from the high school got some better photos of us in action during the parade.

I'm grimacing, but Sputnik looks pretty gung-ho! He was really pulling at the bit the whole time and needed a lot of slowing down. 









Finn, on the other hand, was a real slowpoke and Phil had to break out his whip to encourage him to move along. 









Close-up of Sputnik. I don't usually drive with a halter under the bridle, but purple is the T-bolts color so I couldn't leave it behind. I also knew Sputnik would be fired up and pulling and I wanted to try driving him in a halter so I wouldn't have to yank on his mouth. It didn't do any good. Almost the first thing that happened was that as soon as he started leaning into the halter, the noseband slid down to the end of his nose and made him angry so I had to get out and snap the reins to the bit. 








Finn always looks so elegant and handsome in his bridle. He's absolute eye candy and he knows it!


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## Damfino

wifeof1 said:


> Do you have any pictures of you driving a team?


Yes! There's a whole thread about that with pictures and videos and everything: https://www.thegoatspot.net/threads/goat-teams-first-drive.187757/


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## wifeof1

Wow. That is so cool. Now I have a zillion more reasons to love goats.


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## TCOLVIN

groovyoldlady said:


> That is totally awesome! LOVE it!!!!!





Damfino said:


> Someone from the high school got some better photos of us in action during the parade.
> 
> I'm grimacing, but Sputnik looks pretty gung-ho! He was really pulling at the bit the whole time and needed a lot of slowing down.
> View attachment 123953
> 
> 
> Finn, on the other hand, was a real slowpoke and Phil had to break out his whip to encourage him to move along.
> View attachment 123954
> 
> 
> Close-up of Sputnik. I don't usually drive with a halter under the bridle, but purple is the T-bolts color so I couldn't leave it behind. I also knew Sputnik would be fired up and pulling and I wanted to try driving him in a halter so I wouldn't have to yank on his mouth. It didn't do any good. Almost the first thing that happened was that as soon as he started leaning into the halter, the noseband slid down to the end of his nose and made him angry so I had to get out and snap the reins to the bit.
> View attachment 123955
> 
> Finn always looks so elegant and handsome in his bridle. He's absolute eye candy and he knows it!
> View attachment 123956


Where do you get your harnesses?
I have 2 whethers that will be 2 years old this coming March. I want to pair them in the pulling of a goat cart. Any help appreciated. I bought 2 pulling harnesses but they do not have the rear part for the braking of the cart when stopping. I'll have to modify these. This is closet thing I have found.


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## Damfino

I bought these harnesses from Chimacum tack. They weren't cheap but they were worth every penny! However, I drive a LOT and we do quite a few parades and events so I want harnesses that look good. A nylon harness doesn't look amazing but is quite a bit cheaper than what I paid for my beta biothane harnesses. I still have my first harness which I purchased from Hoegger's Goat Supply 15 years ago. It's nylon and it looks pretty beat up by now, but it's still perfectly functional. 

If I were going to recommend a starter harness it would be the one from Hoegger. The Hoegger harnesses can easily be modified for team driving which is more than can be said for a lot of other harnesses. You would need to buy a pair of team coupling lines (reins) for team driving. Good luck with your project!


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## MellonFriend

They are so amazing! How long does it take to train them to do that?


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## Damfino

MellonFriend said:


> They are so amazing! How long does it take to train them to do that?


That's a complicated question! It takes daily time spent with your goats to make sure they're friendly and trust you. When our guys were babies up to two years old, we worked with them on little tricks and obstacle courses and hiked with them regularly so they learned obedience and trust and learned to tune into our voices. Spending time bonding with goats is easy and anyone can do it with no special skills, but it takes commitment. It's easy to remember with milking does because you HAVE to spend time with them once or twice a day every single day. With wethers it's easy to get lazy and forget to work with them.

If your goat is bonded and trusting, it takes no time at all to teach them to wear a harness and pull. I hitched up one of my dairy does yesterday for the first time and walked her up and down the driveway with no trouble at all. She was great! I might use her tomorrow at the local Halloween celebration to cart kids around. If your goat is calm and gentle, it will pull a cart without special training as long as someone leads it.

Teaching to drive while you ride in the cart is a different matter and takes more dedicated time and training. I start by making sure my goats are used to driving commands without the cart. I walk them with the leash in my right hand and a whip in my left. When I give the command to "walk on" I tap the goat on the hind leg with the whip so they learn that commands come from the rear, not the front. I might have to tug the leash at first to get him started, but soon he should be walking on with just a whip tap and then just a voice command. The fatal mistake that some people make is they teach the goat to lead without ever using a whip to teach the concept of commands coming from the rear. Then they get in the cart and expect the goat to move. The goat, meanwhile, is waiting for someone to come up front and get him started.

The other fatal mistake is that people hitch up and try to drive away from home. The goat doesn't want to leave home and isn't going to cooperate. Try leading him away from home and driving him back until he's quite good at it. Or better yet, load him and the cart up in your truck and take them to a quiet location away from home where he will not be distracted by his barn buddies.

We started our goats driving as a team when they were two years old. We didn't start them driving single until this year when they turned three. It is quicker to train a team because goats like to work with a buddy. However, it is easier to drive and work with only one goat. I know that sounds contradictory, but it makes sense if you try it. Driving a team takes more technique than driving a single goat, and you have to be very particular about your harness, rein, and hitch adjustments. You also have to concentrate on two goats instead of one.

Training a team of goats takes very little goat training and a lot of self training. Training a single goat takes more goat training and less self training. We drove our goat team for only about ten days before driving them in their first parade. They were well-prepared and went perfectly. Training them to drive single the next year took very little work because they already knew how to drive as a team. Had we started out with single hitches I think it would have taken quite a bit more time to be prepared to drive in a parade.


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## toth boer goats

Too cool.


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## Goats Rock

How neat! What dedication you have! I am impressed!


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## NyGoatMom

Hats off to you damfino...I always enjoy seeing your posts about the carts


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## Damfino

Thanks! We sure do have fun with these guys!


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## AlpineRanch

I really enjoyed reading this thread. Thank you so much for all your info! I just got 2 alpine bucklings that we are wanting to train for a cart.


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## AlpineRanch

Okay, I also need to ask. Where did you get those adorable chariots? Or did you make them yourselves? Great job if you did!


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## Damfino

Glad you are enjoying our goat driving adventures! Training goats to pull is a lot of fun. If you've never driven animals before, I strongly encourage you to read up on horse harnessing, hitching, and driving and even take a couple of lessons from a horse driving enthusiast in your area.

The chariots are converted from the goat carts that Hoegger Goat Supply used to sell. All we did was remove the seats and have a tiny bit of welding work done so we could convert them easily from carts to chariots and back. The wheels must be placed further forward on a chariot in order to prevent overloading the goat's back. But the design of this particular cart made this a very easy and reversible conversion.

The red and blue plastic fronts on the chariots were cut from plastic rolls. I was going to use plastic roll-up sleds, but they are pretty flimsy. I found something much better in an online motor sports shop:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Colored-Plastic-Rolls-10-Ft,1557.html

The hub caps are made from cheap metal pizza pans that we found in Wal-Mart and decorated with our emblems. They're zip tied to the spokes.


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## AlpineRanch

Wow! You thought of everything when making these.They are just amazing!


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## Damfino

Thanks! We sure had fun with this project. Training the goats has been the best part, but designing and decorating our chariots and costumes was also a real hoot! If you ever build your own chariot, I highly recommend the plastic sheets from Speedway Motors. They are way better than I could have expected!


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## top_goat

I just ran across this and am totally "wow'd"! This is so cool! Hats off to you!


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## pnptrapp

Damfino said:


> Glad you are enjoying our goat driving adventures! Training goats to pull is a lot of fun. If you've never driven animals before, I strongly encourage you to read up on horse harnessing, hitching, and driving and even take a couple of lessons from a horse driving enthusiast in your area.
> 
> We are just getting started on our goat adventure and both my son and I want to train our goats to hike, and pull carts. My dream is to get a team of 6 goats to pull stagecoaches in parades. We are a long way off from that. Do you have specific sources you recommend starting with for beginners? We haven't been able to find anyone near us who drive horses, let alone goats, so we've been trying to figure it out by looking for videos and references on line.
> 
> We currently have 2 boer goats, 1 wether and 1 doe, both a year old. They are 4H show goats so they have been worked with extensively and love my boy. We've been sort of working with the wether trying to get started but need way more advice. We will be getting a second wether this year for him to show. My youngest son decided he wanted dairy goats and we are currently in the process of bottle feeding them as they are both just a month old. What do you recommend us working on for each of our "groups" of goats. All of the wethers will be trained for hiking and carting if possible.


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## Trollmor

Damfino said:


> Rye Homecoming was today and Phil and I hitched up our chariots for parade! Phil wore his Thor thunder god outfit.


May I call you Siv now? But Sputnik and Finn, who is Tanngnjost and who is Tanngrisner?

And welcome, pnptrapp! Thank you for finding and bumping this thread!


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## Damfino

pnptrapp said:


> We are just getting started on our goat adventure and both my son and I want to train our goats to hike, and pull carts. My dream is to get a team of 6 goats to pull stagecoaches in parades. We are a long way off from that. Do you have specific sources you recommend starting with for beginners? We haven't been able to find anyone near us who drive horses, let alone goats, so we've been trying to figure it out by looking for videos and references on line.
> 
> We currently have 2 boer goats, 1 wether and 1 doe, both a year old. They are 4H show goats so they have been worked with extensively and love my boy. We've been sort of working with the wether trying to get started but need way more advice. We will be getting a second wether this year for him to show. My youngest son decided he wanted dairy goats and we are currently in the process of bottle feeding them as they are both just a month old. What do you recommend us working on for each of our "groups" of goats. All of the wethers will be trained for hiking and carting if possible.


Hey there! I'm so excited that you're interested in goat driving. A six-goat team is very ambitious and would be something to behold! Do you have any experience driving horses or ponies? If not, you might want to take a few lessons before you train your goats. If you have horse driving experience, the harnessing, hitching, and training principles are the same for goats.

I've written a few goat driving articles here: 
https://www.goatorama.com/driving-articles/

Also, I've got a team driving thread here: 
https://www.thegoatspot.net/threads/goat-teams-first-drive.187757/#post-1995614


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