Learning About The Doe Heat Cycle For New Goat Owners

It’s a fact about goats that some females, or does, experience heat cycles year around. Others come into heat only during the fall months. Throughout the breeding season, a doe periodically comes into heat or estrus.  

During the peak of estrus, known as standing heat, a doe is receptive to a buck’s attention and can become pregnant. This phase of the reproductive cycle may last between 12 to 36 hours.

The time between the start of one estrus and the start of the next is called the estrous cycle. Different individual does have different estrous cycles. A doe’s cycle can range anywhere from 18 to 24 days, with 21 days being typical. Keeping track of the length of each of your doe’s cycles is a valuable breeding aid.

The female goat is called a “doe” or “nanny.” Up to the age of 12 months, she is sometimes referred to as a “doeling.” The doe can reach puberty between 4 to 12 months of age, depending on the breed, season of birth, level of feeding/nutrition, and overall health status. 

Under-feeding can lower her chances of getting pregnant and having kids and can also reduce milk production after having kids.The genetic makeup of the animal also determines when puberty occurs in the female. Puberty is reached when the female exhibits her first heat (estrus) and ovulation. 

The gestation period, or length of pregnancy, of the doe ranges between 145 to 152 days, or 150 days (5 months) on average, and under normal circumstances, the doe can have multiple births.

Signs of doe being in heat ( may only show a few)

1. Constantly seeking attention
2. General attitude change   
3. Nervousness    
4. Mounting other goats                                                   
5.  Doe gets talkative/bleating                                          
6. Her tail gets sticky                                              
7. Doe urinates often                                                           
8. Swollen Pink Vulva                                                         
9. Mucus discharge from the vulva                            
10. Tail "Flagging"                                                          
11. Standing to be mounted                                          
12. Fighting/headbutting others                                  
13. Stands by buck pen                                                       
14. Pacing down the fence line 

Note...Your doe may desperately try to get to the buck if there is one nearby. She may also be unusually uneasy OR abnormally affectionate (depends on the goat). If your goat doesn't show any of these signs above, it's called a silent heat.

The Buck

Male goats (called bucks) can breed pretty much any time. ... They'll only breed when they can smell that the female is in “heat”. Bucks can go into a “rut” which basically means they get a surge of hormones and ready to breed before a doe is ready.
They urinate all over themselves and will be covered from head to toe and be sticky, stinky, and slimy.

While in rut the buck will do a lot of tongue waving, blubbering, spitting, stomping and singing the wonderful song "wup", "wup", "wup". He will drink or sniff the does urine if given the chance then raise his lip and curl it back and make the funny“buck face” smelling the air all around him. the lip curl is called the Flehman response.

Keep in mind Bucks can and will breed through a fence if given the chance.