I could have SWORN she was preggo

[SarahFair]

Her teats grew somewhat larger and her udder seemed to grow a tiny bit each day.
Its not huge by any means but it seems to have dropped just a tad.

My SO didnt think she was pregnant till he saw her run. It looked like a wave of water was in her. Plus if you watch her sides they will move. I know the rumen moves on the left so I have been watching on the right.

Well this morning she is being a little crazy. She keeps trying to woo and mount my brown fainting doe, about 3 months old.
She (the older one) keeps sticking her tounge out and saying things like bleh bleh bleh bleh and nosing her side then kinda marching at the fainters back side. The little fainter just kinda stands there till the older one tries to mount then shell just move to the side a little.
I noticed on the fainter her little "pooch" is a little pink today. She doesnt have any discharge though.


I could have sworn that the older one was preggo, could she just be hormonal? If she is not and is in heat I would like to get her bred so I can milk her. How would I go about doing that?

 

[Chirpy]

What breed of goat is she? How old is she? When do you think she was bred?

 

[SarahFair]

Shes a oberX with something that I think is a year round breeder.

I picked her up in early April late march of this year and she could have been bred anytime before that. She is possibly about 8 months old...

 

[ksalvagno]

There are a couple ways to know for sure. One is to draw blood and send it in to a lab for a progesterone test. Another on is an xray. Ultrasound is another one. If she is only 8 months old then her udder could just be growing with the rest of her. Hard to say if she is pregnant or not.

 

[cmjust0]

If she's only 8mo old now, and could have been bred anytime before now, I'd personally consider it a blessing if she's NOT bred.. I say that because 7-8mo/70lbs is the absolute earliest you'd ever want to turn a standard sized goat in to be bred, so they'd be 5mo+ bigger by the time kids came along..

You don't want an 80lb goat trying to deliver kids from a standard sized buck.. That can go very, very wrong, very quickly.

 

[Chirpy]

I agree with cmjust0 and hope that she's not bred. If she is, things will probably go just fine when she delivers but she's young.

I would personally wait until this fall and breed her for a next spring freshening. That will give her body more time to grow and mature. You should start looking for the right buck for her now and have him lined up for breeding this fall.

If you don't want to or can't do any of the tests to see if she's pregnant right now then you will want to count from the day you got her and watch her and the calendar. Most does give birth around day 150... but they can go anytime from day 140ish to day 165ish. That will give you the absolute latest time for her to give birth and then you'll know for sure.

...... I'm waiting on a doe right now that I don't believe is pregnant (hoping she is)- I'll know for sure by the end of this week!

 

[SarahFair]

How do you line a buck up?
Where do you look and whom do you talk to?

 

[cmjust0]

Stud service is one of those great paradoxes to goat ownership..

All the books tell you to find someone in the area who offers a buck for stud, while simultaneously advising that you never, ever, ever allow new goats onto your property without first being quarantined with a sentry wether, blah blah blah.. Clearly, there's a flaw in the slaw there...two totally contradictory ideas.

What almost always ends up happening for people who buy does and plan to find a stud is that they are unable to locate one, and end up being forced to buy a buck...and then once they have a buck, those same people are totally unwilling to allow foreign goats onto their property to be serviced.

Round and round she goes.

 

[Chirpy]

To find a buck talk to your local vets. Call your local 4H office and maybe even your local extension office. Talk to the people at your feedstores. Go to your local fair (if you have one) and talk to goat people there.

Around here people will not allow you to bring a doe onto their property for servicing without an up-to-date certificate showing they are CAE, Brucella and often Johnes negative. Or, if they are allowing their buck to go to your house you still need to show proof of the above being negative.

Whether I would be looking for a Champion buck of excellent lineage or just a run-of-the-mill mutt buck - around here I wouldn't take my doe to someone who didn't require those papers as there are people who are spreading those diseases/issues without telling others they have it in their herds.

 

[SarahFair]

I think I will just buy my own buck and resell him...
I dont want to deal with people who are "funny"