Too many many male kids!

[Barbara Jean Rondine]

Hi everyone and Deborah,

Im selecting a buck for my 5 year old doe, Macchitta, and have some questions I'd like some guidance on, please. 

I've breed her two times to a first buck, one male kid the first time and three males the second time. I changed bucks for the next breeding and got four males! Is the sex of the kids solely determined by the males or are there determinants from the female, too? I'd dearly love to have another doe. 

Macchiatta is polled, does she need to have a horned buck?

If I choose a third buck, he is only seven months old,is that old enough to have viable sperm?  

Thanks very much for speedy responses, she'll soon be in heat.

Barb Rondine

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

In a study with more than a thousand Saanens, when they bred homozygous polled to homozygous polled, there was a ten percent incidence of hermaphrodites in the kids. That’s only one in ten, but more than a risk some people want to take. So it’s totally up to you.

Some does do seem to throw more of one gender than another when you look back on their life after ten years of breeding. But then I’ve had some does who will have all of one sex for a few years then make it up by having all of the other gender one year. So you never know.

A seven month old buck should be able to get a doe pregnant, but there is always some variability between bucks. If he’s bred other does, then you know he can do it.