The Minnesota Zoo is excited to welcome its 20th annual Farm Babies (formerly known as Spring Babies when it began in 1997) celebration on Friday – and the arrival of ELEVEN new pygmy goat kids will make the event even cuter.

Goats are arguably one of the most popular animals at the Wells Fargo Family Farm. Found in the Goat and Sheep Barn, they’re inquisitive, energetic, playful and charming. Did you know that goats were first raised by humans 10,000 years ago? Today, more than 200 breeds provide milk, cheese, meat, hides, fibers, and help to carry heavy loads. Like cows, they are considered bovids but are generally smaller and better adapted to steep, mountainous areas. Goats are “browsing herbivores,” eating leaves, twigs, vines, and shrubs – and at the Minnesota Zoo, they eat a diet of cracked/ground corn mixed with oats, hay and grass. Because goats have four-part stomachs and ruminate (or chew their cud), they can digest plants that other animals cannot. In the wild, goats live on every continent except Antarctica – and the largest numbers of domestic goats live in Asia. Wherever they live, breeds have been adapted to the environment around them.

Know your Goat Vocab!

Billy: young male.
Buck: uncastrated male
Buckling: male kid, or baby
Doe: female
Doeling: female kid, or baby
Herd: group of goats
Kid: male or female baby
Nanny: mature female.
Wether: castrated male
Yearling: 1-2 years old goat

Did you know?

  • Contrary to stories, goats do not eat tin cans. Even though they have 4-part stomachs and a taste for bitter plants, they prefer twigs to tin.
  • Around the world, more people drink goat’s milk than drink cow’s milk—or the milk of any other single animal.
  • Goats are prized for their ability to eat weeds, bushes, and vines, thus clearing land for farming. But that same talent gets goats into trouble. Left unchecked, goats can destroy groundcover and cause soil erosion.
  • Historians believe domestic goats were aboard the Mayflower on its 1620 voyage bringing Pilgrims to North America.

When Farm Babies opens later this week, you can see can see goat kids playing and yearlings butting heads. With the help of Zoo staff and volunteers, you can feed, groom, and pet the goats including French-Alpines, white Saanen goats, and of course, the smaller pygmy goats. Don’t miss Farm Babies this year!