Mountain goat pics (week old kid)

[shanevg]

First 5 pics are with my new DSLR.  First time trying to get any wildlife on the camera.

Last two pics were taken by my bro with my Panasonic Lumix.

The kid is less than 2 weeks old!

[steelhead13]

Nice looking shots.   

[Timberstalker]

Shane-
I have been enjoying your pics of these goats for a couple years now.  You really need to draw a goat tag!

[shanevg]

Shane-
I have been enjoying your pics of these goats for a couple years now.  You really need to draw a goat tag!

Don't need to tell me that, I've been waiting for years!!!

Don't worry, I'm applying in Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada, it will happen sooner or later. 

[carpsniperg2]

Very cool pic's! That's a heck of a nanny as well! Very nice to see some kids! Hope they make it.

[BENCHLEG]

luck is the key word espically in washington.  :bash:thanks for the pics. j

[Widgeondeke]

Very cool pic's! That's a heck of a nanny as well! Very nice to see some kids! Hope they make it.

I was thinking the same thing 

at first glance I thought that was a billy with the momma & kid.

[180-GRAIN]

What goat unit did you take the shots in?

[SuperDave]

Great looking photo's!

[Tony]

Nice pic's

[shanevg]

What goat unit did you take the shots in?

Mt Baker.

[trophyhunt]

Very cool pic's! That's a heck of a nanny as well! Very nice to see some kids! Hope they make it.

I was thinking the same thing 

at first glance I thought that was a billy with the momma & kid.

:yeah:I also thought it was a billy, I might have made a mistake if I had a tag in my poket and I was shooting at 200+ yards. Heck of a nanny.

[C-Money]

Great pic's! 

[netcoyote]

Really like those goat pics!
While we are on the topic of goats...I was down in the Goat Rocks Wilderness last year and saw this big guy....least I think it was a billy. I thought it might be a pregnant nanny since it was so large. Anybody have a good way to determine sex on these critters? How about the breeding periods? This pic was taken in mid August.
[smg id=10536]

[shanevg]

Sure is a big bodied goat but I can't tell for sure if it is a nanny or billy. Body shape just looks more nanny-ish to me if I had to guess.

Mountain goats give birth in the last week of May to first week of June. Definitely not a pregnant goat in August. Sometimes it's just funny seeing them with such short hair (it is about he shortest in early August) when you can see all its body features in great detail.

[boonerboy]

what are some tips for determining the sex? I love looking at goats but know next to nothing about them. 

[netcoyote]

Here's another goat from the Goat Rocks area in August 2010. None of them looked like they were starving. The sure look different without all the winter hair. Don't know how to determine sex. Maybe a view from the rear would be more revealing.
[smg id=10537]

[jmx369]

All of those are great goat shots. Thanks for posting.

[shanevg]

what are some tips for determining the sex? I love looking at goats but know next to nothing about them. 

There are a lot of different ways to determine the sex of the goat.  I have been able to see a goat's "male package" from behind a time or to, but most of the time that is not the easiest view to get of a goat.  The horns are usually the best way to tell the difference.  A male's horns have MUCH more mass than a female's.  Additionally, a male's horns will make almost a quarter circle as opposed to a female's which will start out very straight and then kind of hook right at the very end. 

In the first picture below you can see that this one is obviously a female.  It's body size gives it away as bigger than a yearling goat but the horns have almost no mass at all and are very short. 

Similarly, the second goat (with the young kid) is also a female (a good way to tell is if it has a kid with it, although in a big herd the kids will really mill around quite a bit and sometimes you can't tell which goat a particular kid belongs to).  One way to tell this is a nanny is the long straight horn at the bottom, and very little mass.  A good rule of thumb is that if the base of the horn is wider than the eyeball it is usually a male.  In this case, the horn is obviously thinner than the eyeball.  You may also notice that the horns seem to be particularly long.  That is partially due to the lack of mass that makes them look very long, although the longest horns ever measured on goats are all on nannies.  In general, a billy's horns will be longer than a majority of the nanny's. 

In the third though sixth pictures you can really get an idea of the straight horns that hook right at the end and the lack of mass.  Almost all of these nanny's have particularly long horns for a nanny.  I am convinced that the Mt. Baker herd generally has longer horned nanny's than most areas and I actually believe I have seen a few that might push B&C.  The last picture is of one such nanny that really seems to have it all.  It is quite massive at the bases and very good length and a very wide spread.  Most people don't realize that spread can make a big difference in goat scoring and a big nanny like this with a particularly wide spread could just push the B&C boundary. 

[shanevg]

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten close enough to any large billies to get you any real good pictures but I have enough representative pictures to give you an idea.  Both of these first two billies are young billies still hanging out with the nanny herds.  The first one is very good at showing some classic billy traits, mass at the bases, the quarter circle horns, etc.  He may turn out to be a good billy in the near future. 

The second billy (pictures 3 and 4) is a poor genetic billy in my opinion.  His horn length and body size indicate to me that he may be relatively old (4-5 years) but his lack of mass is noticeable.  Still you can see the quarter circle horns again. 

The last billy is an iPhone picture from the zoo but gives you a good idea of what a big billy will look like.

[shanevg]

Some more good resources:

http://wildlife.state.co.us/NR/rdonlyres/0245BEA4-BAB9-4475-93DF-16AC8BBD0433/0/MountainGoatIDQuizWEBRev09102010.pdf

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/fw/wildlife/hunting/docs/goat_orientation_08Utah.pdf

Also some pictures I found online of some billies that were killed by hunters. 

[carpsniperg2]

I have not been around goat's much. I have always heard about the gland at the base of the horns. It seem's like the blackness on the base of the horns tells a lot about the goat being a male.

Shane, I hope you are ready for me to draw my tag this year You will be getting a call for sure

[shanevg]

I have not been around goat's much. I have always heard about the gland at the base of the horns. It seem's like the blackness on the base of the horns tells a lot about the goat being a male.

Shane, I hope you are ready for me to draw my tag this year You will be getting a call for sure

The gland is a great way to tell a billy from nanny, especially as you get closer and closer to the November rut.  The thing to remember is that when their hair is not very long you can see a gland on all goats, so just be careful about that.  But when it is close to November the gland is impossible to miss.  You can see it from hundreds of yards away through your binoculars. 

I can't wait for any HuntWa member to get drawn so I can help them out!