Last weekend, Summer, my four-year-old doe (still milking after April kidding) was very definitely in heat. However, she is showing signs of heat again today and is quite moist. I took her yearling daughter (Dancer) today to be bred - she was definitely in heat! Is this "sympathy heat" or could Summer actually be in heat again so soon? Her milk production is also down about 2/3 of a week ago.
You need to be a member of Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats to add comments!
Replies
I used to always insist on drying off a doe three months after she was bred, and my daughter would argue with me about it. She was the main milker for about ten years, and she insisted that pregnant goats always dried up on their own. I'd argue with her and insist that she stop milking even if a doe was still going strong with milk production. Well, she was right 100% of the time. Every single goat that was still milking strong when she was supposed to be 3 months pregnant turned out to not be pregnant. My daughter went away to college two years ago, and now that my husband and I are doing all of the milking, I've noticed that most Nigerians dry up before they are even three months pregnant, often shortly after they hit the two month mark.
I have heard of a couple of standard breed goats milking through pregnancy, but one of those was in a dairy, so she was being milked by machine, and I'm sure that when you're milking eight or more goats at a time with a pipeline milking system that you don't notice things like milk changing to colostrum.
I had actually never heard of anyone doing the bleach test for a goat until a week ago or so. It's one of those old things that women used to do before the invention of home pregnancy tests for humans. I'm sure if there was any accuracy to it, the Clorox company would have capitalized on it decades ago, like the Arm & Hammer company started selling air freshener, cat litter, and detergent when they realized that baking soda could be used as an ingredient in those products.
I read about the bleach pregnancy test, but I also read that you disagree with it. Your reasoning sounds completely logical (amonia and bleach DO NOT belong together!) this goes back to my freshman year of college. Chem 101 ;-) so I ordered the Biopryn lab supplies to draw for a pregnancy test on her. I've never drawn blood on a goat before, but if I can do it on people, I'm sure I can do it on a goat.
Thank you for your info, Deborah!
Just to keep life interesting ... there are also silent heats, but unless you have a way to watch your goats all day long, it's way too easy to miss a heat cycle. Goats go into heat 21 days +/- 2 days, so if she was in heat Nov. 9, she would have come back into heat again between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2. It's not always easy to keep a close watch on goats every day for several days.
There are false heats, but those are usually 21 days after the heat where the doe was bred. I've only had a couple of goats do that in the last 12 years, so it's not nearly as common as a doe double cycling and coming into heat six days after being bred.
Now today is December 5th, and she has not shown any signs of heat again. What are the chances she is pregnant now if she did not show signs of heat this month? With my pregnant doe I have now, this was my conformation that they were pregnant. No heat cycle = pregnancy... Not to mention that they are looking pregnant too. But the others did not have the "false heat" and since I didn't put my doe back with the buck the second time, is it likely she is pregnant?
I'm so confused. I guess I can wait a few days and get a test done. Thank you!
Phoebe
Yep, she could be in heat again. They can sometimes have a false heat and then have a real heat about six days later. Happened a couple of times to us this fall.