Mountain Goats
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The mountain goats really belong to the antelope family and are not really goats at all! They are most closely related to antelopes in Asia and the European Alps. The mountain goat belongs to the family Bovidae and are classified as Oreamnos americanus. |
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The mountain goats are excellent climbers. Their hooves have soft pads in the middle for traction. The pads are also slightly hollowed and act like a suction cup when they press down. The edges are hard for cutting into rock or ice. Their hooves are also split into two sections, unlike a horse. The two sections can be spread out wide so the mountain goat won't slip when travelling downhill. Two claws higher up on the foot work like brakes if the goat begins to slide. The mountain goats can run through anything like hard rock, snow, and ice. They are able to perform amazing feats! If they run out of room on a ledge, they can either back up or stand up on their hind legs, turn around and drop back down to all four hooves. They can also jump from one dangerous ledge to another, covering as much as 10 feet in a single bound. If a mountain goat wants to move to a higher ledge, it can leap straight up and hook its front feet over the top of a rock. Using its back legs, it then pulls itself up over the ridge to the top.
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It is very hard to sneak up on mountain goats. They have very good eyes and can see movement up to a mile away! They also have a keen sense of smell and can detect enemies long before there is any danger. Even if they don't smell danger, their excellent hearing will warn them of enemies coming. |
The mountain goats are about 36-48 inches from shoulders to hooves. Billies can weigh up to 250 pounds or more. Nannies are much lighter and smaller.
Both sexes have black horns, but you can tell the difference between nannies and billies because the billies' horns are curved and the nannies' are more straight, with a sharp curve at the tips. They never lose their horns, they just grow a little longer each year.
Their fur is yellowish-white that covers the body. They also have a little tuft of fur under their chins. Mountain goats are well dressed for life in the mountains. They wear a heavy, whit fleecy coat which keeps them snug and warm in cold weather. The shaggy outer layer is made up of guard hairs that may be up to 5-6 inches long that shed both water and snow. Underneath are about 3-4 inches of very fine wool. The undercoat helps to keep their valuable body heat from escaping.
Because their front legs are short compared to the back legs, they walk very stiffly, appearing to strut around.
The Indians of the northwest once used the wooly undercoat of the mountain goat for making beautiful, lightweight, and warm Chilkat blankets.
Mountain goats eat any exposed vegetation in the high mountains. Most of their food consists of grasses, sedges, and rushes. They also love salt and often snack on a special type of clay found high in the mountains. They are herbivorous ruminants, or cud chewing animals. This means that they first gulp down their food while foraging and store it for later when they can relax and eat. They have two parts to their stomachs, one for storing food which is later brought back up to the mouth for chewing, another part for digesting food. Stored food is regurgitated back up to the mouth for chewing and is then swallowed into the part of their stomach used for digesting. Mountain goats are sturdy creatures and can find plenty to eat where cows would starve. You can tell how good their diet is by the size of the rings on their horns. Narrow growth rings mean they didn't have much food. If you count the rings on their horns, you can tell the number of winters the goat has lived. The average mountain goat lives about ten rings.
Nannies are the bosses in mountain goat society except in mating season. Billies live alone or in small groups during the summer, joining up with the nannies and kids in the fall, when mating season begins. When mating starts the males start fighting over whose nannie is whose. If one of them doesn't back down, they may fight, using their horns as daggers. Usually the fights are short, but sometimes there are serious injuries.
They don't travel very far in the winter, usually no more than a range of 5 miles. When spring arrives, it is time for the mountain goat to begin to shed it's heavy winter coat. Large patches of their fleece are shed and catch on rocks and bushes. While they are shedding, they look very scraggly, with clumps of wool hanging from their bodies. Before too long, a new lightweight summer coat grows in and thickens in through the fall. New guard hairs grow and a new thick undercoat develops in time for the cold winter.
Nannies' give birth in late spring, finding a cave or grassy ledge on a cliff. They usually have only one baby, but sometimes have twins, and very rarely have triplets.
The babies have two black leathery spots on their head where horns will grow. A few minutes after being born, the kid stands up and begins to feed on its mother's milk. The kids are usually about 13 inches tall at the shoulder and weigh about 7 pounds. In less than 1 hour the kid is hopping on its own legs.
The young mountain goat follows its mother really closely. Nannies stay very close to their young kids. If any animal tries to get the kid it has to get past the mom first. After a few days, they join the band of other nannies and their young.
The young mountain goats start nibbling on plants when they are one week old but they will keep drinking their mother's milk for another five weeks or so. By winter they weigh about 22 pounds. They stay with their mother through the winter, but when spring comes the nannies send them off on their own before the new kids are born. Most of the kids stay with the band for at least another year before going out on their own.
I 'm hoping you like it and learned something from it!!!!!
By: Donny
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