is this heat or something else?

mamaC11 · #1 11/03/12, 11:08 AM

One of our girls has had a pasty tail with some discharge. She refuses to let our buck near her, and if we hold her she puts up the biggest fight ever. Anyway, DH tried to hold her this morning, the buck wasn't successful, couldn't even begin to mount her so he let them out to browse. She's standing in my front yard now with a string of goo hanging out of her that seems to be blood tinged. I'd say it is hanging out a good 6-8 inches, clear to whitish except on the very end where there seems to be a tiniest bit of blood. Sorry to keep coming to y'all with stupid questions, i'm just such a newbie

Strange Bear · #2 11/03/12, 11:13 AM

Could she have been bred a while ago, and is either miscarrying or in labor?
Just another newbie here.

KrisD · #3 11/03/12, 11:15 AM

Are you sure she isn't already bred? If she's in heat and the time is right she will wag her tail at him and holler to him when he's out of reach.

Ford Zoo · #4 11/03/12, 11:16 AM

I've seen the hooha showing signs, but the doe isn't receptive yet. But that long string of goo sounds like he may have bred her when you weren't looking. Perhaps simply leaving her alone with him gave him time to woo her and got her in the mood.

Dottie, our ND, has a very short window, and once the buck mounts her just once, she wants nothing more to do with him.

All I can say about the blood, since it's such a tiny bit-the vulva is very vascular, perhaps the deed caused a little tear? Of course the other thought is that she could have an infection so I would keep an eye on her.

mamaC11 · #5 11/03/12, 11:23 AM

We bought her at the end of may beginning of june sometime. She kidded at the beginning of May according to the guy we bought her from, but her kid was eaten by coyotes b/c he had brought his LGD in for the night due to an injury. She's been with our buck a few times over the months so I guess it is possible that he might have bred her even though every time we saw them together she was running from him like crazy. they are out together right now. The buck keeps sniffing at her, lip curling but he's no longer trying to mount her and she is content to just browse alongside him. I'll keep an eye on her. the vulva seems very swollen compared to what it looked like yesterday, so i'm hoping it is just a very discharge-y heat vs. an infection.

KrisD · #6 11/03/12, 12:53 PM

What breed? Some does are year round breeders and can be bred back shortly after kidding. Many strange things happen in the goat world.

mamaC11 · #7 11/03/12, 01:20 PM

She's a boer. So, I sat down and went over our history with her. When we first got her the first weekend in June, we kept her and the other doe separate from our buck for the first month-month and a half. I noticed clear discharge on her June 12 and noted it on the calendar. Sometime in mid July would be her first exposure to our Buck. We had some bad storms blow through and I put him in their pen as they have the sturdy house and he's in more of a lean to. We began to purposely bring them together around what we were supposing to be heat times the end of Aug. when we were for sure our billy was entering rut. The goo is gone now, but her vulva still seems a bit swollen. she's contentedly munching clover in the yard still.

mamaC11 · #8 11/03/12, 01:22 PM

Funny thing is, we are considering selling them. DH is now jobless and I can't really justify the cost of feed/hay through the winter. I so wanted some cute little boer babies running around that I keep hanging on to the hope that one of them will actually let Billy breed them, lol. They hate him. With a passion.

Clovers_Clan · #9 11/03/12, 01:46 PM

Is he following her around closely or just sniffing and wandering off? If he's sticking to her like white on rice I'd guess she is reaching standing heat(or already has). I agree with Ford Zoo, some stand better than others, by your description I'd guess he got her while you weren't looking.

Fever and foul odor would indicate infection.

mamaC11 · #10 11/03/12, 01:57 PM

well, DH just came home from being out in the woods and we put them back up. She stood for him, but we had to hold her head slightly. He mounted her twice, hopefully it worked.

Backfourty,MI. · #11 11/03/12, 04:50 PM

Sounds like he may have already got her to me. Is she showing any type of udder yet? Any way you can have blood drawn & send it in for PG testing? That would be the best way to tell if she was pregnant.
Without knowing if she is bred or not though I would not keep forcing her to be bred by holding her though if she doesn't want him to breed her. If she was bred back in July the buck could actually cause more harm than good to her.
Check her temp. if your worried about a fever but at this point I would let the buck do his buisness with the girls, if they don't want him then mostly not in heat or already bred.

Cannon_Farms · #12 11/03/12, 07:24 PM

mamac the market has really taken a nose dive the past few months and won't rise again for several more so its hard to get a fair price. Have you tried the market bulletin on hay? I found some very nice rye rounds for $30 which was the world of difference for us on being able to afford our goats the year with hubby possibly loosing his job.

mamaC11 · #13 11/03/12, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Backfourty,MI.

Sounds like he may have already got her to me. Is she showing any type of udder yet? Any way you can have blood drawn & send it in for PG testing? That would be the best way to tell if she was pregnant.
Without knowing if she is bred or not though I would not keep forcing her to be bred by holding her though if she doesn't want him to breed her. If she was bred back in July the buck could actually cause more harm than good to her.
Check her temp. if your worried about a fever but at this point I would let the buck do his buisness with the girls, if they don't want him then mostly not in heat or already bred.

ya know, i've really considered the fact that she might be bred. the only way I can explain thinking she isn't bred is she flirts and calls to him, when he gets close or tries to mount, she ducks, twists, falls down...whatever she can do to get away from him. Both girls do this. That and they seem to show signs of heat every 20ish days (finally figured out what their signs were). The only thing I can come up with is that he is younger than them.

I think we'll take a few months off though just to see if her heat comes back around. On the off chance she is bred, i do not want to do like you said and cause harm. She had a tiny udder when we first got her, she was finishing drying off. It shrank up to nearly unnoticeable. I have not seen any sign of it coming back. He has been all over her all day. He only gets like this for a few days each month, after that he just gets kinda indifferent/borderline mean with them.

mamaC11 · #14 11/03/12, 08:27 PM

cannon farms,
we've been searching for cheap hay. We don't have the ability to move or do anything with a round bale. We could have it delivered and just leave it where it lands, but wouldn't it ruin on the bottom? In our area we're finding Fescue and Bermuda/Fescue mix pretty cheap. Some people have it for $3/square. I know that Fescue can be bad news for kidding issues, but at this point I just want to keep them fed. We have a good bit of woods for them to browse in, they are loving our acorns (which we could easily have a ton of since our property has close to 10 large oak trees), but 90% of the leaves have fallen. They eat dried leaves if forced to, lol.

Cannon_Farms · #15 11/03/12, 10:14 PM

we dont have anything but ourselves to move them, we use my truck to haul one at a time then roll it off the truck and in place. The biggest difference between you and i is that I dont have horned goats so i just set it on a pallet, wrap with cattle panel and tarp it, you can do that with horned goats but you will have to pull the hay from the middle after several days depending on how many you have.
For the rounds I store I put them on a pallet, cover the pallet with a tarp before I set it on it then tarp the top and that helps keep the moisture from the ground to come up. By the time the goats are done with what they are going to eat off the bale even if the bottom does mold a little bit they are not going to eat it anyway.

round bales must be sat on end or the goats like to eat the center out and can get trapped. Of course you can set the bale on the outside and just pull from it daily to feed them.

Fescue hay has a small risk but with the value of the kids most produce its too great of a risk for some. I fed it with my boers and never had a problem but the diary girls I get more for their kids so its not worth the risk now.

If you cant get on market bulletin Ill be glad to copy the hay page and paste for you.

Cannon_Farms · #16 11/03/12, 10:15 PM

Btw, acorns can be toxic in high enough quantity in some species the verdict for goats is still more on opinion from my understanding, all I can say is it must take allot