Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting More on the packgoats

The greenies will try to ban everyone who doesn't carry a <30lb pack. They've tried to ban pack animals in a couple wilderness areas here just because they don't like to see horse manure. They didn't get very far with that.

I also enjoy seeing the photos Ex and Rock and the update.

Continued success on the goat test trials.

Thanks guys! Informational! I'm thinking I can throw two in the back of a Toyota and still get a good buck outta the wilderness. I'm still capable of hauling a heavy pack myself. Honestly I can see 3 in the back of a Toyota..

It won't be the "greenies" that stop goats/llamas as pack animals. It'll be the wild sheep organizations. I know of one wild sheep hunting org in CO already has it on their radar...

So far my local BLM NCA is the only one to ban pack goats, yet they still have an open sheep allotment in amongst the desert bighorns. I back up to another NCA that has no restrictions. I do know the Shoshone National Forest and Inyo National Forest have some major restrictions. Obviously I don’t see the concern, but it could be a real problem in the future.


Regarding transportation. I can get all 7 in my F150 still. I have a fairly simple rack presently that I may need to built some wind shelter into for longer trips in rough weather.

Unofficial yearling weights from dog scale at the vet:
Odin 148
Thor 148
Gunnar 144
Ivar 141
Ragnar 140
Loki 126
Nigel 113

Looks like they are progressing well. I have no experience in animals for packing. But I like the ideas of dealing with them if I raised them. Thanks. Rusty

Well, it looks like the boys will have at least one job that they were designed for this year. I drew a mountain goat license!

Congrats and good luck!

What's the environmentalist situation in CO right now? Are they determined to keep goats away from goats?

It’s more about bighorns, but yes that’s coming. In fact my local national forest is pushing this in occupied bighorn habitat, yet refusing to do anything about domestic sheep grazing in the same places. So I’m working on a comment on their draft resource management plan.

If they are allowing domestic sheep grazing, I can't imagine the basis for restricting any pack animals. GD

Because goat people are an easier target than ranchers.

A couple of new developments:
Gunnar got his head trapped in the feeder and the rest of the boys beat the crap out of him for the day. I don't know if related but he also collapsed on his pasterns. I've managed to get him back up to weight, but still having pastern issues. He's on light duty for now.

Weights as of late June:
Gunnar 167 at vet's office, 7 pounds above what his heart girth measurement indicates. That same metric also puts Thor and Ivar at over 180, Odin and Ragnar also above 160, Nigel at 150ish and Loki close to 140. I still don't really believe the earlier weights I got with Nigel weighing less than Loki.

So I got the kids out for an unladen first attempt at accessing my mountain goat unit off of a road, partly to get out of the house, but also to lay eyes on some of the ground in late May. After slogging for a couple miles in the snow, we gave up and turned around. Couldn't even get close

Next update is first time with any real weight. We put rocks and small logs on plus packed in a few beers in a soft sided cooler and kids stuff for Father's Day and short hike. Gunnar got excused of the duty and Loki left at home to keep him company. Went smoothly, no one had a problem with the pack or the weight and they were all pretty feisty that day, looking to fight, so seemed like they could have used more weight. Also made them cross a deep enough section of creek that Thor went in to his chest and hopped out no worse for wear.

And now for their first overnight pack trip. We kept everyone except Thor under 10% of their body weight. Thor got 20 pounds on the way in, which was maybe 11%. Most awkward aspects was dealing with the sleeping pads that didn't roll up very small. They definitely wanted to upset the loads when wagging back and forth. Also an issue was getting enough weight into each small pannier. The goats had more capacity than the panniers could handle with low density stuff like clothing or loose tents without poles(in our packs). Also brought in more gear than was needed because I wasn't sure how I was going to tie them up at night. Repacking on the return trip we did a lot better job balancing loads. I brought the scale in and kept things with a pound, but still needed a balance rock here and there.
Anyway, they did fantastic. No issues with stamina or cooperation, and the all adapted to trail life and carrying packs extremely well. The boys realized that when we stopped for a breather, they could sit down or browse if they wanted to. Quickly realized the deathly power of a squirt gun could keep them out of the main camp area with the tents and cooking gear. They actively avoided eating poisonous plants like larkspur. They had at least 15 creek crossings over 12 miles, including with some deep and fast moving stuff. It took some coaxing on the fastest stream on the way in, but no problems after that. No hesitation on the return. We still couldn't get up high enough and what was planned as a one way trip turned into an in and out return trip.
Also of interest to me was how disinterested in drinking water they were. I don't know if it was because they had green vegetation to eat, but only two goats took small sips of muddy water on the way in. And four of the six (Gunnar still out) drank in muddy puddles on the way down. They had lots of opportunities at clear creeks, even with the packs off.
All in all, this felt like a success, even though I still couldn't get to the highest basins for my mountain goat hunt, but could glass the rocks from below.







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Excellent. Thanks for the updates.

Hope that Gunnar recovers. Goats are truly vicious if one is weak or they can take advantage of it...empathy does not exist.

This is a really interesting thread.

I know nothing about goats. What is a pastern?