If someone has got your goat, it’s likely that a goat will be able to tell, scientists have found.

Goats can distinguish between a happy and angry voice, suggesting they can pick up emotional cues in speech, and may become wary or anxious from aggressive tones.

The findings have implications for farmers and smallholders who may not realise the tone of their voice could be impacting the welfare of their animals.

Researchers played audio recordings of happy and angry human voices to animals at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Maidstone, Kent.

Dr Marianne Mason, of the University of Roehampton, said: “We predicted that if goats could discriminate emotional content conveyed in the human voice, they would dishabituate, looking faster and for longer towards the source of the sound.”

They found that when the recording switched from a friendly to an angry voice, or vice versa, the goats became alert and spent longer gazing towards the sound.

‘Sensitive to human emotion’

Prof Alan McElligott, an expert in animal behaviour and welfare at City University of Hong Kong: “This study offers the first evidence that goats can discriminate between cues expressed in the human voice, namely, emotional valence.

“These findings contribute to the limited literature available indicating livestock, like companion animals, are sensitive to human emotional cues.”

Goats were the first livestock species to be domesticated about 10,000 years ago and experts believe the length of time spent with humans may have helped them develop a sensitivity to human speech.

Prof McElligott has previously shown that goats can read human emotional expressions, suggesting that companion animals like dogs and horses are not the only ones to perceive different human facial cues.

Goats will gaze imploringly at their owners when they are struggling to complete a task, a trait common in dogs but not wolves, for example, who have never learned how to co-exist with humans.

The team also demonstrated that goats encode their bleating with information related to their individual identity and emotional experiences.

In addition, goats can work out how to break into a sealed box using levers, a task used to gauge intelligence in apes. They can even remember the skill four years later, without prompting.

In the new experiments, the researchers did not notice any significant physiological changes among the goats, such as a raised heartbeat when exposed to changes in tone.

However, experts have warned angry voices may cause fear in animals while positive speech may be perceived as calming and may even encourage animals to approach and help with human-animal bonding.

Prof McElligott concluded. “Further research is needed to understand the importance of the human voice on the emotional lives and welfare of goats and other domesticated species.”

There are 100,000 goats in Britain, and a billion worldwide, but until recently they have been considered no more intelligent than sheep.

In many countries, including Italy and Germany the phrase “as stupid as a goat” is used as an insult.

The research was published in the journal Animal Behaviour.