 Petunia and Quizno on a Date Breeding season is here and with it all the hope and stress of prepping for next year’s kidding season. Last year, our first year breeding, Petunia was our only goat to be bred. We did a driveway breeding with a local mini-nubian goat owner. One hour and a little gas money, and we had Petunia bred for triplets. This year, with our own buck on the job, I figured it would be a snap to time pregnancies so that Emma got a birthday kidding, and then about a month later our other does would kid. Kids earlier in the season would give us better size babies for showing at fair, and less problems with worms and coccidiosis in the spring/summer. For us this meant breeding in September and October. Well folks, it’s November and I do not have a single pregnant doe!!  Our wether makes a great heat detector for the does Initially in September, we had a series of weeks where all the does seemed to go into heat every 5-10 days. Apparently, sometimes at the beginning of the rut they can cycle really close together. When this happens they don’t always have an egg to fertilize. Usually after a few cycles they even out to the usual 17-21 days. So for September, when the girls didn’t get pregnant, I didn’t worry too much. In October, everyone’s heat cycles seemed to even out with the exception of Penelope who had an extended 7 day heat cycle mid October, but then went back into heat again and was bred at the end of October. Now we are into November and everyone is starting to cycle back AGAIN!  Playdate It is possible that the does are not ovulating, or that their fertility is low because of some type of nutritional deficiency. There is something called cystic ovaries that can cause infertility in does, but I believe all of my does are too young for this condition, and they don’t have the usual signs. I will give all the does BOSE to make sure that they are not selenium or vit E deficient. We have never copper bloused, and I do not see any sign of copper deficiency, but I will consider that in the future if we continue to have doe issues. I will also “flush” them, or, increase their nutrition slightly to make sure their bodies know there is enough nutrition to have babies. More likely, though, is that we have a problem with our buck.  Tigger thinking buck thoughts It is possible he is just a little too young. Nigerian bucks tend to be fertile by 3-4 months old, but Nubian bucks can take until 7-8 months old. Since he is 50/50, and shows a lot of Nigerian traits, I would think he would become fertile on the lower side of that age range, but it is possible in this one trait he is more like his Nubian genetics. He is 6 months old now in November. Another consideration is very rarely polled animals can be infertile, but this is most likely when they have had polled to polled breeding in their parentage, which our buck does not, so I consider this cause unlikely. If we continue to have issues, I will have him checked for this. For Tigger, I really think the situation is nutritionally based. When we got him he had a very rough coat and was small and thin. Through treatment for coccidiosis and supplementation we have largely corrected any nutritional concerns, however, the reproductive function is usually the last system to benefit when nutrition is improved. It is probably going to take more time.  BOSE requires a vet prescription There are several minerals that are implicated in high quality sperm production. The most important of these are zinc and selenium. A BOSE shot will take care of the selenium. For zinc, I am supplementing pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds in his diet because I have these readily available to me. Whole roasted, unshelled pumpkin seeds contain about 3mg zinc per ounce, and shelled pumpkin seeds contains about 2.5mg per ounce. Pumpkin seeds are also high in vitamin E which works together with selenium. This time of year, slightly used pumpkins (Halloween, Thanksgiving) and pumpkin seeds are really cheap and easy to find and all the goats love them. I asked at work for my co-workers to bring me their pumpkin innards and pumpkin toss aways, and got a few great pumpkins and some slimy innards. The goats gobble these with great relish!  Hemp seeds contain approximately 5mg zinc, plus a lot of other awesome minerals in one ounce. I will pick up a few at the store for a top dressing sprinkle.
Based on Tigger’s current size, I will give him about an ounce of pumpkin seeds and a sprinkle of hemp every day for the next 2 weeks, plus toss in some pumpkins for everyone. It takes about 49 days for a buck to grow mature sperm. If nutrition is indeed the cause, and these interventions fix the issue, I should be looking at a significantly increased quality by the end of December/early January. Hopefully that will be soon enough to catch the end of the rut season and still get babies by May!
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