Breeding age for doe?

A doe should be about 2/3 of their adult weight before being bred, so I shoot for 40 pounds since most does are about 60 pounds when mature. I bred a lot of does that age through the years, and they all did fine, so size is really most important. I learned this the hard way when I bred a doe simply because she was 18 months old. We wound up at the vet with the hardest pull I've ever experienced to get a kid out vaginally. My daughter and I struggled to hold the goat as the vet pulled the kid. This was probably about 15 years ago before I knew that weight was important, so I have no idea how much she weighed when she was bred, but after the kid was out, she weighed 35 pounds at the vet, so she was WAY too small to have been bred, in spite of the fact that she was 18 months old when bred.

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Lil June 2, 2020 at 11:33am

Thanks so much! That definitely makes sense. I have a doeling that will be 9 months in November, and I'm hoping she'll be at a good weight then so I can breed her. If not, I'll just wait till next fall.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle June 2, 2020 at 11:30am

A doe should be about 2/3 of their adult weight before being bred, so I shoot for 40 pounds since most does are about 60 pounds when mature. I bred a lot of does that age through the years, and they all did fine, so size is really most important. I learned this the hard way when I bred a doe simply because she was 18 months old. We wound up at the vet with the hardest pull I've ever experienced to get a kid out vaginally. My daughter and I struggled to hold the goat as the vet pulled the kid. This was probably about 15 years ago before I knew that weight was important, so I have no idea how much she weighed when she was bred, but after the kid was out, she weighed 35 pounds at the vet, so she was WAY too small to have been bred, in spite of the fact that she was 18 months old when bred.

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