Sizing a Goat

[passinggas33]

Just have a curiosity about judging length on goats. Is there a way to ballpark horn length based on other characteristics? I spent some time in the alpine wilderness of Washington and found goats and truly had no idea on how to figure out how long their horns were.

An example is like moose . You can often look at the ears and know that tip to tip is 30” wide. So you can then start to extrapolate.

Can you look at goat ears when they are at attention and judge from there?

Here’s an example of the nanny that I saw and couldn’t figure out how old she really was or how long the horns were.

 

[naptho]

Goat's ears are said to generally be about 6 inches long. This nanny looks sizable to me, and is probably pushing 10 yrs old. Here's a good resource from ADFG's website where I first learned this info.

Mountain Goat Identification, Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Mountain Goat Identification

www.adfg.alaska.gov

 

[cdes29]

Goat's ears are said to generally be about 6 inches long. This nanny looks sizable to me, and is probably pushing 10 yrs old. Here's a good resource from ADFG's website where I first learned this info.

Mountain Goat Identification, Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Mountain Goat Identification

www.adfg.alaska.gov

This was helpful. Thanks

 

[Coveyleader]

Super hard. I’ve shot three of them and each one was like hmm? What am I looking at.

 

[StopMakingSense]

Length is tough but plausible from a distance. Listen to this explanation from Marvin, he goes over how to judge goat length with a side profile. I've found this to be true on most goats we've shot. Start it from the 1hr 1min mark ... https://journalofmountainhunting.co...coastal-goat-hunting-with-marvin-kwiatkowski/

The goat in my prfile picture was 10 6/8 and we knew he broke well over 10" with Marvin's method.

Are you trying to get an exact age or rough estimation? We count annuli sub 200 yards if we wanted some further confirmation after judging via body type and size. If we can count 4-5 rings and still see a decent chunk lof ength below we know it's going to be 7-8+



I like to toss most goats into the young, mature, and the old category 9+ and this is done via body type. Roman nose, hair looks matted, big humps on the back, horse head, muscle mass is begining to regress, walking very deliberately etc... It helps to have multiple goats around to compare when comparing body types. When you see an old one you'll know. Best time of the year to do this is the first two weeks of November.

This first one was 9 years, he has big shoulders horse head etc... but look at his rear, he's really losing muscle mass, he just looks worn. We watched him for 5 minutes and decided quickly he was worth the stalk.



As opposed to what I took as a mature billy, he's filled out really well and looks solid. Don't get me wrong, he looks nice but he has some good breeding years ahead. These billy's get the pass from us.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Not to get too off track, but I’ve wondered how Mt. goat tastes? Buddy has a tag and I hope he can fill it I’m excited to know

 

[passinggas33]

Length is tough but plausible from a distance. Listen to this explanation from Marvin, he goes over how to judge goat length with a side profile. I've found this to be true on most goats we've shot. Start it from the 1hr 1min mark ... https://journalofmountainhunting.co...coastal-goat-hunting-with-marvin-kwiatkowski/

The goat in my prfile picture was 10 6/8 and we knew he broke well over 10" with Marvin's method.

Are you trying to get an exact age or rough estimation? We count annuli sub 200 yards if we wanted some further confirmation after judging via body type and size. If we can count 4-5 rings and still see a decent chunk lof ength below we know it's going to be 7-8+

View attachment 947597

I like to toss most goats into the young, mature, and the old category 9+ and this is done via body type. Roman nose, hair looks matted, big humps on the back, horse head, muscle mass is begining to regress, walking very deliberately etc... It helps to have multiple goats around to compare when comparing body types. When you see an old one you'll know. Best time of the year to do this is the first two weeks of November.

This first one was 9 years, he has big shoulders horse head etc... but look at his rear, he's really losing muscle mass, he just looks worn. We watched him for 5 minutes and decided quickly he was worth the stalk.

View attachment 947598

As opposed to what I took as a mature billy, he's filled out really well and looks solid. Don't get me wrong, he looks nice but he has some good breeding years ahead. These billy's get the pass from us.

View attachment 947599

This is great information. I don’t have a tag (though I continually try for one), but seeing these up close and personal made me have more interest in learning to how to better judge horn length and extrapolate that out to guesstimate on age. It’s as much of a curiosity as anything. I’ll listen to this information so I can learn. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge.