# I hear different on what age to start packing



## lonitamclay (Aug 29, 2009)

I hear different on what age to begin start packing goats. Some guy told me that you should wait 4 years to do the heavy duty goat packing and longer trips. I guess he said that because their backs (basically back bone) is not fully developed yet and you can hurt them with the heavier packing loads. And said you should use panniers and frames that should be custom to each one of your goats and when they do go through heavier brush the packs will stay on and not get caught up. So I guess the lighter packs and even soft packs are good for the younger goats for shorter trips and training. I suppose I should practice with the frames later when they get that age. what do you think?


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## sanhestar (Dec 10, 2008)

Hello,

it's basically similar to horses, working dogs, etc.

You should (have to) wait for the growth plates in the bones to close before doing heavy work. Doing heavy work before that CAN damage the growth plates and/or the cartilages in the joints and in turn cause long term damage to the animal (arthritis, spondylosis and other things).

Same with overweight during growing, poor mineral nutrition, to little exercise, etc.

Horses will grow until 7 years (that's why in earlier times the army wouldn't buy horses younger than that age)

Dogs until 3 years

Goats until 4, sometimes 5 years

It's an act of balance between working them and not harming them. And it's NOT saying to pamper them either. Bones need exercise to become stable (only with exercise the body will place more calcium into them to make them stronger) but it's dangerous to overdo it. So hiking without weight can be done from an early age on and they will build stamina and get trail experience without a load on their backs (and that's worth a lot more than putting a load on them in my eyes).

A soft pack/soft saddle often doesn't distribute the weight in the same way a "hard saddle" does and looking at the prices for the soft saddles it doesn't make very much sense in my eyes to pay for a soft saddle to be able to pack 1 or two years earlier and THEN pay for a hard saddle.

I can sympathize with people who have only 2 or 3 goats that they may have want to start packing as soon as possible instead of waiting 1 or 2 more years (or 3).

When we started with goats I had years of experience with (young) horses) and where imprinted with "wait until they are 3 before you start them". Now I have enough older goats that I can wait for the younger to grow and - another thing - I have already so many saddles for the old goats that I don't see much sense in buying yet another one (soft saddle) for this 1 or 1,5 years in the span of a packgoats life (or have a smaller saddle custom build).


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## ohiogoatgirl (Jan 31, 2010)

from what I read start the leading and most training as soon as possible. when they learn this practice more with a blanket tied on their back to get them used to stuff being on their back. start with empty soft packs then put in light weight slowly adding more once they are yearlings.
I found this very helpful...
http://www.northwestpackgoats.com/training_tips.htm


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