Question about training a pair of cart goats

[sanhestar]

Hello,

maybe someone here has some insight.

this is a question for cart goat people.

I’m training a pair of goats to become cart goats. I chose these two because they have similar temperaments and are similar in rank (middle ranked). They are also father and son.

After a few training hikes one of them – Oliver, the father – still lags behind about on head length. Although he’s slightly bigger than Lucky and has longer legs, his basic walk seems to be slower than Lucky’s. He’s not being lazy, I don’t have to pull him along, he simply seems for comfortable in that position than walking nose to nose.

I worked with both of them, prompting Oliver to catch up and hold this position and also – very carefully because I don’t want to ruin his will to work – slowing Lucky down a bit. But it’s a constant fine-tuning.

Oliver walks at the off-position, Lucky at nigh. I’ve already tried to reverse that with a worse result. Oliver is also more easily spooked (why I placed him “off”, away from traffic) so he also sometimes stops to evaluate something the spookes him. Lucky feels more secure directly at my side and keeps going. When I changed their positions, Lucky became more insecure, Oliver remained as spooky as before and so they both come to a stand-still much more often. Both are connected with a short belt at their collars while I lead them with halters.

Is this something that will get better with more training? When I add something for them to pull? Right now I take them out on walks only to get them accustomed to being out on their own and respond to my commands.

Should I take another goat that fits better to Lucky’s speed? Lucky needs to work, he had UC problems last year and I have to manage his weight with exercise during the winter. Most of the other goats that would have the temperment to be trained as cart goats are considerably bigger than him, therefore faster.

Is this something that one can also watch in horses and/or oxen during early stages of training?

I took Oliver out last winter to pull a travois and he didn’t shirk the work.

My aim is to keep walking besides them and to use all their strength for pulling loads. I most likely will not train them to be driven from behind unless this would help to correct Oliver’s problem.

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