What to expect when your goat is expecting

In this post, the focus will be on how we breed our goats and how we monitor them right up until kidding.

Kidding season is one of our favorite times on the farm. We love new life on the farm, and baby goats are just so cute and entertaining. That means that by the end of winter, we aren't just looking forward to warmer weather, but we are also anxiously awaiting the arrival of the first new kids. Our first set of kids this year was born on February 28. That was a little early, but since it was Claire's first kidding and she had twins, not surprising. As of today, we have had a total of 24 kids born (we also had a few that died during or shortly after birth for various reasons) and we still have 2 does that should kid in the next month or so. We occasionally have kids born in October or November, but for the most part, we plan our pregnancies so that the majority of our kidding begins in March and ends by June. This is no accident!

Goats are fairly hardy, but there's a saying along the lines of "A goat can be cold, or a goat can be wet, but a goat should never be cold and wet." Well, when a goat is born, it will be wet, so if you have a goat born in the winter, it is guaranteed to be cold and wet unless you are there to snatch it up right after it is born and take it inside to warm up and dry off. If you aren't, there is a good chance the newborn kid will develop health issues or even die. Goats are also well known for kidding on the coldest night around - they are very thoughtful that way. We've had to bring in kids before and dry them off with a hairdryer, usually after going out to the kidding stall every hour late into the night, and it has made us be very deliberate about when we allow our girls to breed. Some types of goats will only come into heat once a year,so in those cases, you don't have alot of choice. Nigerian dwarf goats, however, will come into heat every three weeks or so all year long, so this gives us the ability to plan our births accordingly. Regardless of breed and how often does may come into heat, all goats have a gestation period of around five month, five days (or 150 days give or take a few). For where we are located with our climate, that means we stop breeding around the middle of June and don't let our billies back in with the girls until sometime in October.

We have a separate area to sequester the billies during the non-breeding time, and we usually keep a wether (a male goat that has been castrated) in with them for company while leaving our largest wether, Zero, in with the girls for protection. During breeding season, we allow our boys to free roam with the girls. If we kept more than 2 breeding billies at a time, we wouldn't do this since it would be a little taxing on the girls (the boys are very persistent when a doe/nanny is in heat), but since we only have one or two billies in our herd at a time, it works for us.

We can usually tell when a doe has been bred since we won't see the signs of a doe in heat that month. For us, the most obvious sign a doe is in heat (outside of the ridiculous behavior of the boys) is tail flicking. The girls will constantly flick their tails - it's the goat equivalent of the human "hair flip." I assume this is to spread the scent of the pheromone they are releasing that lets the boys know they are ready to breed, but whatever the reason, it is constant. Some females will also have a mucus discharge from the vulva, but this isn't true for all of them. The boys for their part, will start relentlessly following the doe, making strange vocalizations and will attempt to make themselves irresistible by urinating on their own faces. Very charming.

If all goes well, five months and five days after breeding, there should be kidding, but since we aren't always there to witness the breeding, we have other ways to help us know when a doe is getting ready to be a momma so that we can have the nursery area ready. I like to be present at the birth whenever possible, and not just to assist, although that is sometimes necessary. I love witnessing new life come into the world.

If the doe has never kidded before, one of the first signs that you are within a month or so of kidding is the udder will start to develop. For nannies that have kidded before, their bags will already be developed, but it will start to fill out more as they near birthing. When they are within a couple of days of birth, the bag will become very tight - so much so that it may appear somewhat shiny. The vulva will also start to look a bit puffy, and mucus may also appear right before birthing. The nanny may can go through a personality change, too, becoming more affectionate or more distant. She may also start spending more time apart from the herd. All of these are good indicators that you should begin "goat watch," but for us the best sign is to check the ligaments found on either side of the spine near the tail. On our farm, we call this "checking pencils."

All goats have a ligament near the base of the tail that fans out in a "V" shape. Normally, these ligaments are fairly hard and have the feel of 2 pencils meeting at the tail and spreading out toward the hips. As the goat gets closer to delivering, these ligaments will begin to soften. Sometimes the ligaments will feel soft one day and then hard again the next day, whereas other times they will just progressively soften. When the ligaments completely disappear, you can pretty much count on the kids being born within 24 hours. We have found this to be an almost foolproof method for predicting kidding.

In the next post, I'll cover what we do during and right after kidding.