Goat Farming
For many of us, our main connection to goats is typically through our screens. We see goats regularly feature in viral videos featuring their vocal screams, odd facial expressions, sporadic jumping and climbing, and of late, their presence in yoga. While eating goat is fairly rare in Western culture, goat meat is a staple food in many other cultures. Every year around the world, over 400 million of them are killed for human consumption.
While you may not be part of this demand directly, Australia is the largest exporter of goats and goat meat, helping to meet some of the global demand. As a result, our domestic goat meat industry impacts the animals, our environment, and our health.
About Goats
Goats are inquisitive animals, unique in character, and incredibly perceptive. Ancient studies held that goats were able to recognise and understand if the people drawing closer were hunters or merely walking, which was argued as proof of their intelligence [1].
Goats are emotional and incredibly social.
Emotions are important in the sense that they facilitate the choosing of appropriate decisions in response to events and stimuli [2]. Despite misconceptions and myth, there is compelling and overwhelming evidence that many other animals experience a range of emotions, including joy, fear, love, despair, and grief [3]. In the past, scientists were reluctant to recognise emotions to other animals. Now, that dismissal of animal emotion is considered archaic, outdated, and fundamentally out of sync with sound science [4]. Though they are popularly known for their formidable head-butting skills and their seemingly crazed jumping routines (YouTube “Buttercup the goat and friends”), the rich and complex emotional lives of goats has been significantly underestimated [5]. In many ways, and in the ways that matter most, we are a lot like them [6].
Goats talk to and learn from each other.
Goats are very vocal animals. They even murmur in their sleep [7]. They can sense subtle emotional changes in each others vocal calls [8]. Similar to us, they can also discern the calls of friends from those of strangers [9]. This means they can distinguish between other goats’ emotions, such as happiness or sadness, simply by listening to their voices [10]. They can also use cues from others to locate and access food [11]. Yet, it goes far further than interactions with their own species. Other studies have found that goats prefer to interact and engage with happy human faces [12]. This means that they can discriminate between friendly and unfriendly faces, and they can associate negative perceptions to past experiences with people, as has been shown in other species [13]. They understand the gestures we make with our hands [14]. They even show physical and psychological benefits from massage therapy [15]. This means that they are conscious of and sensitive to our emotional and physical cues, too!
Goats are highly intelligent and have impressive long-term memories.
The emotions described above lead to serious ethical ramifications. These animals enjoy exploring their surroundings and are naturally curious [18]. Goats can perform matching tasks with simple visual symbols [19]. Far more intelligent than is often believed, they have “impressive” long-term memories which allow them to accurately distinguish between objects first seen several weeks earlier [20]. Although intelligent and emotional, goats have been used for their meat, milk, skin, and fur since they were first domesticated up to 10,000 years ago [17].
Goats are loving mothers.
Like many other ungulates, goats live in large social groups where females generally give birth at the same time [21]. After birth, they form fast and strong relationships with their offspring [22]. These relationships, referred to as “imprinting”, are formed almost immediately [23]. They also quickly learn to recognise their babies within 4 hours of birth and can identify them by voice by 48 [26]. Like cows, goats lick their newborns and establish a bond by doing so [25]. During the first week, kids are completely dependent on their mothers. After approximately 15 weeks, they begin spending more time with other goats their own age [24]. Kids use distress calls to alert their mother where they are with sounds which vary with age, sex and body size [27].
Goats have distinct personalities.
Like the reluctant scientists who refused to recognise emotions to other animals, there has been a similar trend to discount the existence of individual personalities in animals [28]. Like us, animals undoubtedly differ from one another [29]. As with humans, the mother in the animal kingdom is a significant influence [30]. Every goat has a distinct individual personality [31]. Some are bold, while others are shy – no two are the same. This has been known for a very long time, at least since Aesop’s tales were written in the 14th century [32]. Many farmers acknowledge this, noting that these animals continue to surprise them with their unique personalities. Some have said that “people just think you throw ‘em in a field and they’re just a goat, but they have personalities [and] they can be a pet just like a dog” [33].
The Industry
While Australia has a relatively small demand for goat flesh, around the world, they are one of the most widely consumed animals [34]. Annually, around 450 million goats are killed for human consumption [35], with over 1.65 million individuals slaughtered in Australia every year [36]. Their flesh is popular in North Africa, the Middle East, among Hispanic populations in the US, and parts of Asia [36]. Australia has become the largest exporter of goats and goat meat in the world [37], sending to the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Trinidad and Tobago [34].
Standards and Welfare Issues
The following information is in regards to the Australian goat meat industry. There are over 40 goat producers, for both meat and dairy, in Australia [38].
Wild-Caught
Goats were introduced into Australia in 1788 with the first fleet, and were released onto islands and various areas of the mainland as an “emergency” food source [39]. All wild goats are descendants from the originals, who are now known as Rangeland goats. They have adapted to the environment and thrived, but are now viewed as “pests”.
Previously, wild goats were caught and sold for human consumption, however, 90% of goats killed are actually “semi-wild” meaning they are part of a partially managed system. This method involves trapping animals from the wild and occasionally introducing a buck to breed with females for “higher quality” products [40].
There are a few mustering methods used in Australia, involving motorbikes, dogs, and light aircraft [40]. Farmers will go out on motorbikes and round up entire herds, eventually forcing them into trapping stations. Aircraft are sometimes used to find the herd and direct the people on motorbikes. Occasionally they will use a “Judas” goat, where one animal is caught, fitted with a tracking GPS, and released. The producers will then be able to know the exact location of the herd and will go and round them up. Once a herd is found, the animals are directed towards the trapping station, where they can enter, but are unable to leave. These stations are typically set up around water sources.
Drafting and Culling
Once rounded up, goats are separated based on their height, weight, and behaviour. Weaker or infirm individuals are “culled or sold at the next available opportunity… to save double handling” [40]. Those who are of slaughter weight are loaded onto transport trucks and killed. Others may be kept in pens until they reach the slaughter weight.
Breeding and Selection
After drafting and culling, some producers keep females for their “breeding stock”, moving them to either selected rangeland bucks or an introduced meat buck. Both does and bucks can be released in a relatively “uncontrolled free-range environment” or be confined to a rangeland goat paddock [40].
A growth in international demand fuelled the goat farming industry. Farmers saw it as an opportunity to increase their carcass size and speed up their growth rate. Goat farmers breed Boer goats, as they have higher fertility rates, are more likely to have twins and triplets, and can live in a range of environments [41, 39]. On farms, they may be fed a partially unnatural diet, of corn or “mash” or pellets, to speed their growth rate [41].
Transport and Slaughter
Goats are loaded onto transport trucks, given just 0.22m2 per 40kg of weight. This roughly equates to 136 goats per 12.5m x 2.4m truck. The industry claims that too much room can result in injuries due to the individuals moving around too much. They can legally be transported in these cramped conditions for 36 hours – meaning no food or water. If they need to travel for more than 36 hours, they have to be let off after 24 hours and rested before being transported again [40].
Once arriving at the slaughterhouse, goats are either stunned with an electrical current or bolt gun and then have their throats slit, or are gassed and then bled out [42].
Other Welfare Issues
Mustering, trapping, transportation, and slaughter are all incredibly stressful for the goats, as most have had little interaction with humans. While being chased, animals can become injured due to frantically trying to escape. There is a chance that mothers will have been separated from their young during mustering. If she is unable to escape, her kid could die of starvation, and if trapped they can easily get trampled [46].
Once they are caught, they are exposed to a range of unfamiliar noises and may be separated from their friends. Stress can lead to mismothering, feeding disruption, social disruption, heat stress, and abortion [46]. Sudden environmental changes can also cause mortality or morbidity in confined wild goats [46]. During drafting, the scared goats usually crowd together, which can lead to smothering and trampling. Many also try to escape which can lead to injury [40]. Truck drivers and slaughterhouse workers have stated that pregnant does give birth on the trucks and at the slaughterhouse.
Live Export
Those who are not killed in Australia are sent overseas on the live-export ships [43]. Those that survive the horrendous journey will either be used for breeding or slaughtered shortly after arrival [44]. The number of goats sent on the death ships changes year to year, however, in 2018, over 21,000 individuals were loaded onto the ships, accounting for 4% of total export value [34].
Animals are trapped on the ships for several weeks with unnatural social structures and are unable to exhibit any of their natural behaviours, like running, exploring, playing, and grazing. On the ships, animals are subjected to high stocking densities, making it difficult for them to access food and water, and even lay down. The conditions subject the animals to heat stress or pneumonia from extreme changes in climate, as well as poor handling during and after the journey [45].
Animal Liberation Exposé
Animal Liberation exposed goats being stunned in front of each other with a captive bolt gun in 2018.
The Environment
While the goat meat and export industry claims they are helping with Australia’s goat “problem”, this claim is flawed. Producers and exporters rely on a steady supply of goat-meat, meaning they need wild-goats to continue existing. Wild and semi-wild goats require less input in terms of food, water, and staff costs, thus increasing profits. This is why, after years of killing millions of goats, they still exist and are prominent in Australia’s environment.
Before we delve into the environmental impacts, it needs to be noted that Animal Liberation is against the killing of all sentient beings and does not believe animals should be considered “pests” for thriving in an environment they were introduced to. We are in support of non-lethal control methods, such as trapping, neutering, and rehoming and/or releasing (TNR). TNR has proven to be effective at reducing population numbers in wild animals, such as cats [47].
Why Goats are called “Pests”
The Australian Government considers wild goats “pests” because they compete with native animals, as well as farmed sheep and cattle, and degrade the land [39]. As mentioned earlier, goats were introduced during the first fleet, meaning they are not a native animal. Their ability to survive in a range of environments, largely due to their diet, has meant they have thrived in many areas of Australia. The agricultural industry, particularly the beef, lamb, and wool industries, see wild goats as a competition for resources. Labelling goats as “pests”, reduces these sentient beings to nothing more than a problem that needs to be solved, and results in them being treated without respect.
On first impression, it may seem logical that catching and killing goats is helping rid the outback of them, and thus helping native animals, but this is far from true. The goat meat industry is not trying to protect or improve the environment. The industry not only partially manages wild goats, breeding them, and introducing higher-quality males to assist with breeding, they also are killing predators, who are known to keep numbers down.
Killing Predators
In areas where there is a strong presence of dingoes and other predators, there are low population numbers of wild goats. Yet, while the industry claims goats are pests that need to be culled, they also say they need protection from predation, in particular dingoes and wild dogs. Other predators include foxes, pigs, and eagles. As a result, the industry promotes the culling of predator species, through baiting, trapping and shooting, or a combination of all, and also encourages the use of fences and guard dogs to reduce kids being taken [40]. If the industry wanted to improve the environment by reducing goat numbers, they would not prevent wild animals from naturally keeping numbers down.
Risking Other Animals
Baiting, trapping, and trapping stations can both result in the deaths of non-target species [48, 49, 46]. More information regarding the bait killing of non-target species can be found on the Ban 1080 website, under the “indiscriminate tab”, here. The trapping stations used can have a significant negative impact on other wildlife and non-target species, as they can become trapped inside [40]. If set up around water, traps can prevent other animals from accessing the water. It is noted that animals will often try to hang around the trapped water, rather than looking for an alternate source [46]. Trapped animals, in particular macropods (such as wallabies), will often injure themselves trying to escape, running into fences, or when trying to jump over them [46].
Health Impacts
Goat meat is known as red meat, which studies have classified as group 2A carcinogen and can cause cancer [50]. Research has found that red meat contains the chemical haem, which is broken down in the gut, and as a result, N-nitroso chemicals are formed - these have been found to damage the cells that line the bowel, which can lead to bowel cancer. This research has resulted in the Cancer Council advising people to limit their consumption of red meat, and include more legumes, nuts, and seeds to their diets [50]. Red meat has also been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and premature death [51].
Slaughterhouse Workers
Slaughterhouse workers are expected to repeatedly take the lives of thousands of animals every day. They commit acts that most people could not stomach to do themselves. The industry is characterised by high staff turnover rates and absenteeism. The repeated violent work environment results in several workers suffering from a range of mental and psychological health illnesses, like perpetration-induced traumatic stress (PITS), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), paranoia, depression, and cognitive dissonance. These can also end up causing drug and alcohol abuse, an increase in violence towards people and domestic animals, and increased crime rates [52].
In addition to the psychological impacts, workers suffer from physical injuries. They work long shifts in damp and cold environments, conducting monotonous and repetitive movements. They commonly suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, trigger finger, back problems, musculoskeletal disorders, arthritis, and tendonitis. Other injuries include sprains, cuts, punctures, severed limbs, and even death [52].
The goat killing room at Gretna.
Exposed by Animal Liberation.
Full exposé here.
What’s Next?
These sentient, intelligent, and emotional individuals are just another group of animals who are being exploited for money, driven by consumer demand. By changing our perceptions of animals, we are helping foster a kinder world for all, as well as a more sustainable future.
You can help take a stand by leaving goat meat out of your diet, opting for plant-base alternatives, and by sharing this information with your friends and family. Knowledge is power, and creating an informed society will lead to more educated and more ethical consumer choices.