You do not need to be a vet to spot a bad animal. Three checks — the mouth, the ribs and ten steps of walking — catch most of what goes wrong, and they take about two minutes between them.
Do them in that order, and do them before you talk about price. Once a number has been said out loud it gets harder to walk away, which is exactly the moment you most need to be able to.
1. Teeth, for the age
A goat has no upper incisors at all — just a hard dental pad the lower teeth close against. That makes the lower front teeth easy to read, and they are the only honest statement of age you will get in a market.
Stand at the animal's shoulder facing the same way it does, steady the head under the jaw with one hand, and lift the lower lip with the other. It takes a second. A seller who will not let you do this has answered a different question.
| What you see | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Eight small, even milk teeth | Under 12 months |
| One pair of broad permanent teeth in the centre | 12 to 18 months |
| Two pairs broad | About 2 years |
| Three pairs broad | About 3 years |
| Four pairs — a full mouth | About 4 years |
| Worn, gapped or missing teeth | Older, and past its best |
For Dashain and Qurbani buyers this matters twice over, because the age you need is often specified rather than preferred. Ask to see the mouth even when the paperwork looks convincing.
One caution: teeth date an animal, they do not grade it. A two-tooth goat that has been badly kept is a worse buy than a well-grown full mouth.
2. Weight against the frame
A stated weight tells you what the animal weighs. It does not tell you what it is carrying that weight on — and a 30 kg goat can be a well-covered small frame or a big frame running on empty.
Run a flat hand along the spine, then over the ribs, then down into the brisket. You are feeling for cover, not looking for it.
| What your hand finds | Score | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Sharp spine, every rib countable, no brisket | 1 | Walk away |
| Spine prominent, ribs easy to feel | 2 | Thin — ask why |
| Ribs felt under a smooth layer, spine rounded | 3 | What you want |
| Ribs need pressure to find, brisket full | 4 | Good, if the price is not fat |
| Ribs not findable, fat over the tail head | 5 | Over-done; you are buying fat |
Buy at three for breeding stock, three to four for a meat animal you intend to finish yourself. You should feel the ribs under a layer of cover — not see them, and not lose them.
Checking the number itself
Take a girth tape, or any tape. Measure around the chest just behind the front legs, then from the point of the shoulder to the pin bone. Girth in centimetres, squared, times the length in centimetres, divided by 10,840, gives live weight in kilos — near enough to argue with.
It is an estimate and it will be a kilo or two out either way. That is fine: you are not auditing, you are checking that nobody has rounded 26 up to 32. Every listing on this site carries the weight the price belongs to, and you are welcome to put an animal on the scales at your own door before you pay.
3. Gait
Have the animal walked ten steps away from you and ten steps back. Most sellers will do it; the ones who will not have told you something for free.
- Any limp, at any speed — stop there. Lameness is feet, joints or something worse, and none of the three is a bargain.
- Short, stiff, mincing steps — sore feet on both sides, which hides a limp because there is nothing sound left to favour.
- Swollen or knobbly knees — chronic joint disease. It does not come right.
- Reluctance to stand, or kneeling to eat — the animal has been sore for a while.
Then pick up each foot. Hooves should be short and even; overgrown, curling horn means nobody has trimmed them in months. Spread the cleats and smell — foot rot has a rotten, unmistakable smell, and a wet market floor is exactly where it is caught.
The rest of the two-minute check
With the three main checks done, work head to tail. None of this needs equipment.
- Eyes. Draw the lower eyelid down gently. The membrane should be a firm pink. Pale pink or white means anaemia, and in this part of the world that usually means a heavy worm burden.
- Jaw. A soft, fluid swelling under the jaw — bottle jaw — points the same way. Do not buy it.
- Nose and breathing. Clear, or nearly. Thick discharge, a wet cough or heaving flanks at rest are all reasons to leave.
- Coat and skin. Part the hair over the shoulders and along the back. Bald patches, scabs, crusted ears or visible lice mean a problem that arrives at your yard with the animal and spreads to whatever is already there.
- Rear end. Dung should be firm pellets. A dirty, scalded tail area is diarrhoea, however cheerful the seller sounds about it.
- Underneath. On a buck or khasi, two even testicles or a clean castration site. On a doe, a soft udder with no hard lumps. On a kid, run a thumb over the navel for a hernia.
Ask for the paperwork
Three questions, and you can ask them in one breath: when was it last seen by a vet, what has it been vaccinated against, and when was it last dewormed.
You want a veterinary certificate with a recent date on it, vaccination against PPR and whatever else your vet considers routine locally, and a deworming date rather than a shrug. Ask what it has been eating, too, so you can go home with a sack of the same and change the diet across a week — that is where most first-fortnight losses come from, and a feeding schedule that actually works sets out how.
Walk away if
- The animal is limping, however slightly.
- The eyelid membrane is pale, or there is swelling under the jaw.
- It is coughing, or breathing hard while standing still.
- The tail area is dirty and wet.
- You are not allowed to open the mouth, pick up a foot or watch it walk.
- The stated age and the teeth disagree.
- It stands apart from the others, head down, uninterested in what you are doing. A healthy goat is a curious one.
Buying without standing in front of it
Online, the same checks apply — you just have somebody else do them, and then verify at the door.
- Expect a measured weight, an age, a breed and clear photographs of the actual animal, not of one like it.
- Ask for a short video of it walking. A seller with nothing to hide can send one in a minute.
- Check the date on the vet certificate rather than the fact that one exists.
- Because we take payment on delivery, the door is your last checkpoint and it is a real one. Open the mouth, feel the ribs, walk it a few steps. If it does not match the listing, do not pay — our delivery terms put the cost of taking it back on us, not on you.
The whole thing on one card
| Check | Good | Worrying |
|---|---|---|
| Teeth | Match the stated age | Worn, gapped, or older than claimed |
| Ribs and spine | Felt under cover | Sharp and countable, or lost in fat |
| Walk | Even and free, both directions | Any limp or stiffness |
| Hooves | Short, even, no smell | Overgrown, or rotten-smelling |
| Eyelid | Firm pink | Pale or white |
| Breathing | Quiet at rest | Cough, discharge, heaving flanks |
| Dung | Firm pellets | Loose, or a scalded tail |
| Papers | Recent vet date, vaccination, deworming | Vague answers |
Two minutes of this is worth more than any amount of haggling. A sound animal at a fair price is a good buy; a cheap animal that limps is a vet bill with a rope on it. When you are ready, our listings carry the weight, age, breed and vet status of every animal on the card, so most of this can be done before you pick up the phone — and have the pen ready before it arrives.
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