08-22-2015, 10:07 AM
Don't let a lack of horns scare you off too much. It might not work for everyone, but I have a mixed herd of horns and no horns and so far it seems to be working out just fine. It's also worked great for several other people I know with mixed herds. Usually it seems like the people who have any real trouble with mixed herds are the ones who have all girls. I've got a pretty rambunctious group and my one dehorned boy knows he's hornless and he's careful. He's still boss because he's bigger than the others, but he's also a super-chill guy so I'm sure he'll be happy to just step into a place near the bottom when the horned boys get big enough to push him around. He's not going to fight with them when things get too rough.
None of my girls have horns and they'll tussle with the boys, but no one ever gets hurt. My most aggressive goat was a doe who was polled. She would take on (and usually beat) anyone but Cuzco in a fight and she never got hurt fighting the horned boys. So a lot of it comes down to attitude. If you have a chill non-horned goat in with your horned boys, I don't think anything will come of it. He just won't fight them and that will be that. Heck, from what I've seen in my herd, even if he does fight them he'll be just fine.
None of my girls have horns and they'll tussle with the boys, but no one ever gets hurt. My most aggressive goat was a doe who was polled. She would take on (and usually beat) anyone but Cuzco in a fight and she never got hurt fighting the horned boys. So a lot of it comes down to attitude. If you have a chill non-horned goat in with your horned boys, I don't think anything will come of it. He just won't fight them and that will be that. Heck, from what I've seen in my herd, even if he does fight them he'll be just fine.