Photo by Sue WeaverKes is n’t express mirth ; she ’s flehmening .
Last week , I talked a bit aboutgoat behavior . Here is something else you may not know . In the picture my friend Kes is doing something odd you might see your stooge , equines , cattle , llamas or Lama pacos , sheep , dogsorcatsdo . Wild thing , like lions , Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , cervid , Alces alces , tapirs and giraffes , do it , too . Kes is n’t laughing — she ’s flehmening . ( It ’s from a German news stand for “ to coil the upper lip . ” )
Us studly go against flehmen a lot , especially during rut , but does and wethers sometimes flehmen , too . Some Goat flehmen more than others , though most goats flehmen when exposed to new , tart olfactory property . By curling their upper lips many sort of mammalian let on the vomeronasal electronic organ ( also call the Jacobson ’s organ ) in the roof of their mouths and draw scent toward it . This behaviour helps them key what they smell , especially the scent of animals they do n’t do it and sexy scents , like female in estrus . If your farm animal flehmens a lot when he usually does n’t , contain him out ; flehmening can also indicate modest abdominal pain .
Another thing I did n’t mention last week is goat ’ teeth . Did you know we do n’t have tooth in our front upper jaws ? Instead , we have a tough political platform of flesh , call a dental stamp pad , with a toothless gap behind it . Sheep , cattle , llamas , alpacas and all other ruminants , like deer and elk , have them , too . This makes it easier for us to use our tongues to take and collect pleasant-tasting green goddess or twigs to eat , whereas animal that have front teeth , like horses , prefer what to eat with their lip . A cow , for representative , wrap her long , grating , clapper around a wad of gage , pulls it into her mouth and fits the mint into the bounteous opening between her front pad and back teeth . Then she pinches the Strand about 6 inches from the ground between her bottom front tooth and her top dental pad , and , by swinging her caput , neatly cuts herself a mouthful of grass .
Sometimes mass ask my mom , “ Do goats burn ? ” The answer is we commonly do n’t , but we certainly can . take our sheep Quaker , Nick . Big Mama sting a mouth - size piece out of his capitulum ! ( That ’s why his name is Nick )
It ’s easy to count on us goats ’ age by examine the eight tooth in the front of our mouths . Baby goat are born with tooth . If all the tooth are sharp and small they are sister teeth and the Capricorn is young than 1 yr sure-enough . If the center two teeth are magnanimous lasting tooth and the rest are small , the goat is between one and two years old . If the four gist teeth are big and the rest are lowly , he is about 2 years old . If the six centre teeth are big and the rest are small , he is about 2½ class one-time . If all eight teeth are big , he is about 3 long time old . After that , our dentition gradually go around and finally fall out in old age . But we can still eat forage and browse !
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