# relationship? goats and deer



## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Goats are in a different scientific family than deer.

Goats are Bovidae.

Deer are Cervidae.

Not related.


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## Ford Zoo (Jan 27, 2012)

Made me think of an old patient I had a few years back. Told me he still wanted to deer hunt, but it was getting too hard. So he built a small platform stand in his backyard. He also had a pet goat that had free range of the back yard. A whitetail buck started coming into his yard everyday and spent hours playing with his goat. Needless to say, come November, he couldn't shoot the deer, and not another would come into his yard.


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## CaliannG (Apr 29, 2005)

They are not of the same *family*, Alice, but they ARE of the same *Infraorder*, which is Pecora.

And there is still scientific dispute over whether goats belong more in the tribe Caprini, with sheep, or if they should be moved over to the tribe Naemorhedini, which has mountain goats, serows, and gorals, whose diet is very similar.

I would not compare the dietary needs of goats and deer if everyone on here knew what a serow was.


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

I find it fascinating that random topics like this come up here. Just this evening I was pondering just how much a couple of my Nubian kids looked like deer when my tractor spooked them and they bounded away.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

Since we are being 'random' (not really) I was reading in the I Ching today that in ancient China goats and sheep 
were thought of as basically the same thing.
There is only 1 character which applies to both of them. 
As a farmer type, I use the clues in the hexagrams to decide which animal they must mean. :teehee:

Oh, and I did know what a serow was, but had to look up gorpan.


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## CaliannG (Apr 29, 2005)

Well, think about it this way: Our closest relative, in the same family and, according to some, should be in the same genus, is the Bonobos.

HOWEVER, if we are talking about social structure, we are more like the Gibbon. Some could argue that we aren't even related to the Gibbon, because we are in different families (although we share the same infraorder).

Gibbons pair bond, have have nuclear families consisting of a dominant male, a dominant female, and their young. Children tend to leave when they are sexually mature, and go find a mate. There are instances of "divorce", and changes of mates, as well as uncommon instances of polyandrous or polygamous matings; but normally, what they have is a male and female pairing, and their kids.

Bonobos have a female dominated society, and they have sex for EVERYTHING. When they meet other groups, they have sex. When they groom each other, they have sex. They have sex with same AND opposite sexes. They have sex before they argue. They have sex to make up after they argue. Juveniles have sex, with each other and older Bonobos. Most of their interactions involve sex. If they find a fruit laden tree, they get so happy about it, they have a group orgy. Considering their groups can number 100 members, that is a LOT of sex! 

So, if I say that our (meaning human's) social and family structure most closely resembles gibbons, rather than our more genetically closer relatives such as the Bonobos, the Chimpanzees, and the Gorillas, I am not saying that I think we are Gibbons, or that *everything* about us is more like Gibbons than Bonobos. I am simply saying that if we wished to make comparisons about social and family structures, we would be able to make more with Gibbons than with Bonobos, or even, for that matter, Gorillas.

So, when I compare the diets of deer and goats, I am not saying that deer and goats are super closely related, or that deer are more closely related to goats than sheep are; I am simply saying that their *diets* are more comparable than between sheep and goats.

And, of course, I must say that one cannot state that there is NO relation. They are, of course, in the same infraorder, therefore, they are, indeed, related. Just like we are related to Gibbons. Just not as closely related to them as we are to the orgy-loving Bonobos.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

geese, swans, pigeons, and parrots have breeding pair bonding and family raising similar to ours, just adding to the randomonium lol


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

But, what about penguins and chickens?


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

I often make the comparison between people and goats.

They both:

~browse at their fickle whim
~try something and then spit it out and give you dirty looks if it isnt to their liking
~suck up to you if they think it will benefit them to do so
~act uppity if you dont have anything for them
~go potty on inferior offerings
~dump out or waste things they dont currently want w/o thinking of the future
~bash and dominate smaller members of their own families

That is just for starters.

Today I sheared my herd queen Angora for the first time. 
The worst histrionics of all 3 of them.
I learned some new stuff about goats today.


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## Shayanna (Aug 1, 2012)

gone-a-milkin said:


> I often make the comparison between people and goats.
> 
> They both:
> 
> ...


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## MaddieLynn (Nov 23, 2011)

I once saw a humorous article about what it's like to have kids. It said that if you don't have any but want to know what it's like, take a goat to the grocery store. If you plan on having more than one kid, take more than one goat.


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## Shayanna (Aug 1, 2012)

LOL! My husband says we are will not be taking our child to the store. Period. He would get a kick out of this, especially considering I am due in about a week for our first child. Guess we oughta go leash up the livestock.


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