Cute Kid

Photo of a young goat.
Young Domestic Goat (“Kid”); Petaluma, California

I took a drive yesterday looking for lambs to photograph and struck out again.  I did see some goats, however.  This kid was with its mother and two siblings.  The kids moved away as I approached them, but the mother had no fear of me.  She put as much of her head through the woven wire fence as she could, probably hoping for a treat.

Goats are closely related to sheep.  They reach puberty as early as three months.  While they have been used for their milk, meat, hair and sinew for eons, they have become popular as pets in recent times.

Goats are browsers, like deer, not grazers like sheep and cattle.  They have a reputation for eating almost anything including tin cans and cardboard, but they are fairly particular about what they actually eat.  They are very curious and that appears to be what causes them to eat the labels off of tin cans and to taste cardboard.   Their curiosity and intelligence make them very difficult to contain.  They will constantly test enclosures and often mange to escape.  They are also very good climbers like their wild cousins.