Goats in heat?

[Genny]

Is there any way you be SURE that your doe is in heat? My girls tend to tease the boys all the time by waggling their tails at them and rubbing up against the fences (one even sticks out her tongue at them!).

I've always had the luxury (with my angoras before and my nigies now) to have the space to just separate out the doe(s) and buck I wanted them bred to and just leave them together in the pen for about a month. This year I'm using a friends buck to add new bloodlines to my herd and I want to be sure these two does are in heat (and not just teasing!) before I haul them over to be serviced. Any clues?

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

Breeding is such an inexact science. There are so many variables. When you said, "one of them has been bred several times without ever showing interest in the bucks," there are does who have silent heats, but if she didn't get pregnant, then she wasn't in heat. Some does are just more complacent than others, but if that's happening day after day, then she probably has some hormonal problems or mineral deficiency.

As for sperm viability, if I really wanted a doe pregnant, and she looked like she was in heat 24 hours after breeding, I'd put her with the buck again. I've been disappointed too many times, and I've heard from breeders that collect sperm for AI that viability varies a lot from buck to buck and even for one buck, depending upon how many does he's bred and when was the last time he bred a doe.

[Genny]

I have several girls that do that all the time (one of them is very pregnant right now and still teases the guys) . The two that I want to breed "out" are the ones that show no interest -- one of them has been bred several times without ever showing intest in the bucks. That's why I'm having problems telling if these two are in heat or not. I'll try putting them in a pen with one of the wethers to see if that works. Thanks for the tip!

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

If you have a wether, that's usually a good indicator. If she stands for him to mount her, she'll stand for a buck. Usually if they're in heat and they share a fence with a buck, they won't leave him. In fact, it can be nearly impossible to drag them away, and they'll often back up to the fence for him. They'll let him rub his neck against theirs and lick their back end.