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11 Fun Ways to Play with Your Goat

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Goats are great pets. They won’t always be as interactive as a dog, but they’re also lower maintenance. Having a goat at home or on the farm will fill your days with a lot of fun.

If you look online, you’ll have no trouble spotting fun videos of goat owners and their pets climbing on things, wrestling, and getting exercise together outdoors.

There are some hilarious bloopers to see and plenty of sentimental moments between goats and their human parents.

Mother-goat-and-her-kid-outside-staring-sunset

The things that you can do to play with your goat will change as they grow from tiny little things into fully grown adult goats. Still, there is always something you can do to have fun together and build a lasting bond for as long as they live.

Playing with your goat will keep them in good mental and physical health. They need stimulation too, and responsible owners will always have something up their sleeves or on the calendar that they can do with their goats to keep them happy and in good shape.

Here are 11 fun ways to play with your goat and keep things exciting!

1. Build an Obstacle Course

Goats love to climb, and you’ll be amazed at how high they can jump and how quickly they will figure out how to get on top of boxes, barrels, and whatever else you throw in their way.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You can build an obstacle course with things laying around in your garage, old tires, or old furniture that you can buy at a consignment store.

Stick them in different formations in the yard and watch as your goat tackles a way to get to the top. It’s terrific fun to walk outside and see what crazy position your goat has found themselves in this time.

Just make sure that the obstacle course or anything else you put in the backyard is securely in place. Goats love to ram into things and push things around. And, of course, you don’t want your goat falling off of something high up that falls over.

2. Train Your Goat

A fantastic way to play with your goat is to train them to do tricks. Goats, unfortunately, get a bad rap as being a low-intelligence animal. They can do a lot of things dogs can do, though, like give you a kiss, turn around in a circle, bow, and other fun tricks.

With time, you can even get your goat to shake or nod their head in the negative or affirmative. It will take some patience and a lot of treats, but there are a lot of cool things they can learn!

goats playing on the field with farmer

3. Goat Yoga

We’ve already touched on the fact that goats love to climb obstacles, and that can include human obstacles!

If you’re looking for some fun with your goat that checks the “quality time” box, then goat yoga is the way to go. This is best for baby goats or goats on the smaller end of the size spectrum because you don’t want to take on all that weight.

All you have to do is start putting yourself in some yoga positions and your goat will eventually get the picture. They’ll start climbing up on top of your back, your knees, or wherever else they can get. It’s good for a ton of laughs with friends and family.

4. Install a Trampoline

Your goat, believe it or not, will absolutely love jumping on a mini tramp outside. If you put one in, just make sure there is little chance that they can get hurt.

Find one that’s close to the ground where they can get on and off easily and have little to no chance of getting hurt while they jump. You can jump with your goat or have fun watching them enjoy jumping by themselves.

5. Play with an Inflatable Exercise Ball

You can pick up one of those balls you see people at the gym doing crunches on pretty easily online or at your local gym store. Wherever you get one, your goat will have a great time pushing it around the yard with other animals or with an owner.

It’s like a different version of fetch, only goat-style. You can have hours of fun kicking the ball over to your goat and watching them ram it back over to you.

The same goes for other balls too! You can spend afternoons kicking a soccer ball back and forth in the yard with your goat for some good exercise.

6. Give Your Goat a Nice Brushing

Any goat you raise yourself will likely love to be touched and petted. Even better, you can give them a good brushing to make them fall in love with you even more.

Buy something with stiff bristles that will really get into the goat’s coat and give them a good scratch. If you want to do something really fun, cut the end of a stiff broom off and nail it to a wall or fence and laugh with glee at your goat as they get a good butt scratching in.

farmers grooming their goats

7. Build a Platform Swing

Goats are incredibly curious animals. They’ll inspect anything new in their enclosure and have a lot of fun figuring out what to do with it.

One thing owners have had success with is building a platform swing that goats can hop on and go back and forth on.

Seeing your goat swaying back and forth on the swing from your kitchen window is something most owners say they’d never thought they would see.

8. Have a Goat Party

You can have a lot of fun with your goat one on one, but there is even more fun to be had when there’s a goat party going on. One of the best ways to get your goat more active and playful is to introduce other goats into the picture.

These are social animals, and they love playing and wrestling with each other when you’re not around. If you’re not up to owning more than one goat, ask a friend who owns goats to schedule a playdate for your goats to get together.

9. The Goat Seesaw

If you’ve got two or more goats, then the goat seesaw is a go-to toy for owners. Essentially, you build a seesaw out of a wooden plank that will fit a goat. The goats will love climbing on and bouncing each other up and down.

They’ll climb back and forth and figure out a way to balance the weight. If you’re feeling up for it, you can also hop on one end and have some fun pushing your goat up and down.

10. The Goat Carriage

If you’ve got kids, it can be a great time to have your goat pull the kiddos around the yard for a bit. You will probably have to build something of a custom wagon that will fit your goat, but you can teach them fairly easily to pull a wagon or a cart.

female mountaineer hiking with goats

11. Take Your Goat on a Hike

Goats can be a bit unpredictable, so if you’re going to take your goat on a hike for fun, you may want to do it during a low-traffic time of day or week to avoid people and other animals.

However, with your goat on a leash, you can have some fun tackling some challenging hills. Some goats can be trained to carry a pack full of water and snacks for you and your crew.

Having a goat as a pet can be so much fun. These little guys can be great companions for people of all ages, and you’ll have a heap of fun playing with them at home or on the farm.

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