Dairy goat farming has a more benign public image than dairy cattle, but intensive goat production has its own significant welfare challenges that deserve attention.
Goats are highly intelligent, social and inquisitive animals that thrive with varied terrain, browse opportunities and stable social groups. Intensive systems that confine them to barren indoor environments deny these needs profoundly. Disbudding — performed in kids under a month old — causes significant acute and chronic pain when done without analgesic nerve blocks. Foot conditions, particularly foot rot and footscald, cause severe lameness yet often go undertreated in large commercial flocks.