One of my does is acting so strange. I bread her along with another doe on October 11. They came back into heat (both of them) 5 days later, so I bred them again, thinking the first heat was a false heat. One of them came back into heat again yesterday. I bred her again, but she was starting to act more bucky, maybe? Sort of growling/barking/grunting a lot, and sniffing and tongue flapping at the buck, even though she did stand for him.
Now this morning, she was terrorizing the young does, bashing them into the wall, chasing them down...I ended up just shoving her outside so I could finish milking. She ran right over to the bucks and got them all crazy. Finally, I just let one of them out with her...
What do you think? If she is cystic or whatever, could anyone tell me the drugs, dosages, etc. for solving her problem?
Thanks! :)
UPDATE: It has been exactly 7 days since I bred this crazy girl, and she's back up to her crazy growling bleating for the boys, and cruelty to the young does. For some reason she singles out one doeling, a 7 month old nubian. When I take mom out for milking, she just starts ramming her into walls, chasing her all over the place. Thankfully, when mom is there she doesn't act that way. Any way, now she has missed her opportunity for being bred, because I don't have enough space to be breeding too many does at once, and I have much more valuable does to breed as far as production goes. She's just going to have to wait until closer to spring, and we'll try again. She just seems crazy hormonal to me.
I have them on their goat mineral (right now that is the Hoegger Supply golden blend mineral), kelp, meadow hay, an herbal dietary supplement, loose selenium/E and COWP in September, and again at the beginning of this month (because I ran out of minerals for three weeks, so I thought I should make sure they got a bit more). I just stopped milking this doe at the beginning of October, so until then she was getting some grain on the stand every AM, alfalfa pellets, mixed whole grains and BOSS.
Any advice?
Replies
I am in the process of treating a doe for a cystic ovary. She kept coming into heat every 6 days, so she is being treated with 5 daily shots of cystoline (sp?). I'm told by my caprine vet that she will come back into heat 10-14 days after the treatment and can safely be bred then.
Pen breeding is when you leave a buck with a doe (or lots of does) for a long period of time, and you may or may not witness breeding. It means that you will have to guess at due dates, and can make knowing who is pregnant a bit more of a guessing game.
What is pen breeding?
Thanks, Deborah. I was thinking about how I could possibly do pen breeding for her, to see if that might help. Thanks for the confirmation that it might be a good idea. I have to wait until I have a doe I can put with the other buck, then I'll try that.
Sometimes pen breeding is helpful for does like this. Or you can call the vet and get hormone injections for her. That straightens out some does.
Bumping this up, as I added an update. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Thanks ladies! I"m glad to hear that she may be "normal"...whatever that is. :) So, I will keep track of all of her breeding/due dates, and go from there. Too bad she's being so mean to the young does though. I may have to separate her from them tonight if she's still being awful, because they can't get away from her inside the stall. :(
Ditto on everything Rachel said. Three weeks from the second breeding would be this Tuesday, which is within the normal range for heat cycles. A cystic doe usually comes into heat very frequently, like every few days or every week.
Don't forget though, that they can act bucky toward other does that in heat too! So she could be pregnant, and just be reacting to another doe's hormones.
Rachel Whetzel said:
Sounds like she didn't take. I think cystic does are pretty rare, but I have a doe that acts very bucky, and it was because her mineral levels were off. Now that I *think* those are under control, I see improvement in her boy behavior.