Inducing labor................on a goat

Has anyone ever had to induce labor on a goat or sheep? I have a boer who is one day overdue and we need to leave tomorrow. Does the lutalayse method work? Not many people on this side show goats, but almost everyone with cattle runs them together so maybe I'll get lucky asking here.....

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I know lol

We have yet to induce one. We do find they go over a couple of days quite often though. If you get stressed, check with a vet. Often, if ours go over, they are having trips or even quads, and they can get pretty tangled in there. Luckily, our vet is a young woman with little arms, and she has been able to reach in and untangle trips for our random Nigerian Dwarf doe. Personally, I would be more likely to call the vet, inducing a species that almost always has twins and often trips or quads makes me a bit nervous!

I think she has quads in her for as big as she is. She's now 2 days overdue and HUGE. I've had some pretty interesting birthing positions, the most common hang up I have is their shoulders are back and the people babysitting for me have never dealt with that before, let's cross our fingers and hope they aren't tangled.

You say that and she will have one.  One of my ewes didn't even look bred her first go round. If we hadn't ran the bloodtest, I never would have thought she was preggers.  Had no gut whatsoever-had twins, a runt and a monster(20+ pounds).  Second go round, she was belied way down, lots of width thru the gut...looked like I'd get twins, maybe small trips....I got one average sized lamb.  Had to pull of her hers but the 5 pound(or less) runt, they are so thick they get shoulder locked. 

O lord. She's my most productive nanny. twins in march 2011 a single in January and she's huge in august. Holds weight well not really pretty but a good mom. still no baby

Just a dumb question.  How do you know her exact due date?  Did the billy have a harness on or did you AI?

I HATE getting to that last week or two when you know they are really close.  I always get excited ahead of time and make midnight(or more) checks about  3 weeks before they ever go.  I only have a couple ewes right now, so I can't lose any lambs!  I have one that refuses to get caught lambing....we will do hourly checks when its obvious they are going and she will have no progression one hour and the next I have 2 dry lambs sucking on mama.  Every single time!  When you're not expecting it they will come!    I know my vet will not induce anything. Period, doesn't matter who it is or what it is.

We have used this method several times with our vet's assistance and it does seem to work for does that are in the last stages of labor.  It is important to know what stage your doe is in and not give it to her just to pass the kids for convenience.  If her mucus plug has melted away and she is stringing, that is the best time.  Our vet also has us give Dex at the same time to relax the pelvis to allow for an easier birth.  But like anything else, it can cause other problems, but works much better than giving them oxytocin and having them prolapse. 

RidinHeifer said:

Just a dumb question.  How do you know her exact due date?  Did the billy have a harness on or did you AI?

I HATE getting to that last week or two when you know they are really close.  I always get excited ahead of time and make midnight(or more) checks about  3 weeks before they ever go.   I only have a couple ewes right now, so I can't lose any lambs!  I have one that refuses to get caught lambing....we will do hourly checks when its obvious they are going and she will have no progression one hour and the next I have 2 dry lambs sucking on mama.   Every single time!  When you're not expecting it they will come!    I know my vet will not induce anything. Period, doesn't matter who it is or what it is.

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He doesn't have a harness, but I go out during the afternoon and in the evening and write down exactly what day they bred on.  She did have it and it was only a single. We are pretty baffled by this. She was 2 days late and it is a buckling. You might be entertained by this if you are a goat owner; www.oregonrancher.blogspot.com  The goats have been a lot of fun, thoroughly entertaining and knock down the tansee and blackberries

Maybe one of you has experienced this also. I bought a group of boer bred does from washington a few months ago. One has come into heat twice and has been bred by two different bucks, both fertile. She has kidded before, but she's a bigger framed, fatter doe. She's not very feminine. She isn't gobby fat. I'm wondering if it's a cyst or something? Any ideas? I was gone last week so I don't know if she bred back a third time. The market is pretty low right now so I'm not selling anything until October.

oakie said:

Maybe one of you has experienced this also. I bought a group of Boer bred does from washington a few months ago. One has come into heat twice and has been bred by two different bucks, both fertile. She has kidded before, but she's a bigger framed, fatter doe. She's not very feminine. She isn't gobby fat. I'm wondering if it's a cyst or something? Any ideas? I was gone last week so I don't know if she bred back a third time. The market is pretty low right now so I'm not selling anything until October.

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Did you mouth her? I would wonder about her age first off. By the way, goats are holding strong in our area. We have been shipping out loads of 60-70lb wethers that we bought to feed up and sell and have been doing very well even though the kids are Boer x dairy crosses. We have had great luck selling wethers and breeding stock here, hopefully the market doesn't taper off too soon here as well.

Also, glad to hear everything went well with your over-due doe!

I'm thinking she's about 5 so not that old. They were bringing $1.10/lbs for just about everything here today (oregon). We had record prices last year. The highest that one of ours brought, at a meat auction, was $175 for a 125# wether. The buyer has been offering $1.40 right now, I think he is gearing up for October. What are your prices at right now? I'm holding onto everything until October or November

We have been getting 1.30 to 1.40 for 60- 70lb heavily dairy influenced whethers. Like I said, these are ones we did not breed, only bought to feed up and sell.There are a lot of dairy goat breeders trying to capitalize on the meat goat market in this area. Almost all of our home raised breeding stock and wethers are sold private treaty. On the off chance we ship one because it is something we can't fully stand behind, it almost always tops the market and often sell in the 1.50 range. County fair wethers around here get about $4/ lb. Around here, the real deal Boers are a newer thing and supply can't begin to meet demand. I have heard that just 10 years ago, the US produced 70% of the goats it needed for human consumption. Now it is closer to just 20% of consumption. If that holds true, current Boer breeders will glad they got into it when they did.

Boot Jack Bulls said:

We have been getting 1.30 to 1.40 for 60- 70lb heavily dairy influenced whethers. Like I said, these are ones we did not breed, only bought to feed up and sell.There are a lot of dairy goat breeders trying to capitalize on the meat goat market in this area. Almost all of our home raised breeding stock and wethers are sold private treaty. On the off chance we ship one because it is something we can't fully stand behind, it almost always tops the market and often sell in the 1.50 range. County fair wethers around here get about $4/ lb. Around here, the real deal Boers are a newer thing and supply can't begin to meet demand. I have heard that just 10 years ago, the US produced 70% of the goats it needed for human consumption. Now it is closer to just 20% of consumption. If that holds true, current Boer breeders will glad they got into it when they did.

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I think that we have been importing from New Zealand for a few years because we can't meet the US's demands.  I do the same thing you do, buy, fatten and resale. We run our own does and a breeding program along side with the feeder operation too. Everything I have read says that the boers and other meat goats are the ones to get into, because of the muslim, hispanic and the carribean populations on the rise. It will be interesting, we are up to almost 60 and trying to get 75 breeding does. I got $1.80 after easter for some meat goats that only weighed 75#s and the record high seller was a big boer wether weighing 275#s and brought $375. That was last year.  We have alot of dairy breeders that are just now figuring out that if you run a boer buck you get half bloods and the hispanics and muslims just love those ones. My best crosses have been with a nubian doe, they seem to have quite a bit of milkfat, her babies passed the rest. We don't run a dairy but alot of my base females are dairy goat influence and the babies have been gaining .3lbs/day without creep or irrigation. The boers are gaining the same to slightly less. Are black boers pretty big where you are? People go nuts over moonspots here.

As for the blacks around here, they are not as popular. We have had couple of does with a black hood instead of the red, but we prefer very traditional coloring. If a doe with a black hood produces kids with black instead of red when bred to a traditional colored buck, she will likely not stick around very long here. We only have one doe with a black hood right now, one with a red hood that extends down her left shoulder, and a red hooded doe with some very light spots on her withers (these are just to good to sell based on color alone!). We prefer to stick with a solid red hood that just reaches the front of the shoulders and minimal white interference (roaning or splotches), with a wide and even blaze on the face being preferable (it accentuates the roman nose, a good thing in this case).

I think the main reason that traditional colored Boers are so sought after here because so many people try to pass off the dairy crosses as purebreds and people want the real deal. We started with a dairy cross base of females but eventually we found the kids were to costly to finish and took to long to get there as apposed to their purebred Boer counterparts. Now, our does are almost all purebred, with the odd few being about 75% or greater Boer.

What do you give them for a fattening ration? Noone on this side seems to have a clue. I want to hit them with corn and barley but that will make crystals so a no go. The local mill makes some pellets based off of soybean, some corn, and a bunch of other things that works really well with the bred does, but I want to get a little more fat on the ones I am about to wean. I have heard that vegetable oil works good too, I don't see why it wouldn't. Here are the girls I bought out of washington, the off colors are some cheap commercial girls I bought. The one my daughter is petting is the one that seems to have issues breeding back I haven't seen her in heat lately so she may have, but she's pretty masculine looking. The buck is the one I picked up in April, he's 2 and 4 in the photos.  What do you think of the buck? I'm still learning conformation for goats, so don't be shy to fault him. I don't think he's big enough over the top........but I'm still learning.

We feed Purina show chow for goats and top dress with a fat solid (they do not seem to like wet feed so no oil for us) as needed for show stock. For the wethers, we start them on a sweet 16% protein ration to get them eating  and up the corn and fat solids as we go. We love Purina feeds and it is pretty much all we use, whether it is feeding cattle, horses, pigs, sheep or goats!

The doe you are wondering about looks to have some age to her. The first thing I notice in an aging doe is a beard growing and a more masculine appearance.

Your buck  has some good pieces. He has some depth in the rear flank, some natural width and a good face. If I were to fault him, he gives up some bone and structure in his legs. He is a bit over in his knees and low in his pasterns.

As for judging conformation on breeding stock, do not make the mistake of judging them as sheep like too many people do. Conformation is not the same and they do not lay in cover or fat the same way.  Both bucks and does should have a wedge appearance from the shoulders back and legs that are strong, stout and the joints fall in stait lines. They should have width across the topline and base in the chest floor(a sign of capacity). Top line should be smooth and strong, but not straight. Hip should be large and round and carry down into the stifle. They should have good muscling in the twist (inside the back leg). The loin should be long (rib to hip) and deep (grab into the sides and feel the thickness). The udder on both bucks and does is a major consideration. Up to 2 functional and 1 nonfunctional teats are allowed on each side (bucks pass this trait on to their female offspring!). When showing, a roman nose is highly desireable and they should have at least 50% dark skin under the tail.

I would recommend watching an ABGA sanctioned show or two if you can. Look at who is wining and go from there. The ABGA also has an informative website.Hope you find all this helpful and don't hesitate to ask more questions!

I appreciate all the help, I can't even find a professional that has as much knowledge towards this as you do when it comes to feeding and structure.  Everyone here says corn causes crystals? Has that ever happened to you? Some say it's good, some say it's bad alot of contradicting information. It's nice to hear something about conformation, one of ours went to the county fair with a ffa girl and she took reserve supreme female (small show, only 25). We picked her because she came from reputable show stock. Either of us has much knowledge on show conformation, we just went with what our guts said. I think boers are really going to pick up here, cull ewes were bringing $30/hd yesterday and goats of similar quality were bringing about $1/lbs. The neighbor with sheep asked me about the goats.

We've only been in the goats for about 5 years now and just starting to make a name for ourselves. We just had our first division champ at a national show in early July this year and we bred and/ or raised several champion wethers and supreme does at county fairs the last 3 years.  We are working with a breeder in Iowa (Windrush Farms) to become some of the first in the nation to scan Boers for carcass traits like you do in cattle.  You have to remember, Boers haven't been in the US that long, so standards and ideals are just starting to gel. For example, a finished wether can be 50-150lbs-that's a huge range for a relatively small animal. We have worked with Windrush (the Thorpe's) for a while now, and they really gave us our start in the industry by selling us a great buck. If you are planning on selling reg. stock (I highly recommend getting at least %papers on them), look up Windrush's website. They have great stock and stay on the forefront of the  breeding stock industry. Just like cattle, there are certain lineages to avoid and less than reputable breeders, so do your research before you invest. Unfortunately, most big breeders in the country are in the central states, not exactly handy for you!

As far as picking a good one, look at what is wining and  go with your gut! Stick with breeders you can trust and have a clear direction in mind. Do you want to raise wethers to ship, wethers for the majors, breeding/ show stock or AI bucks- all require different game plans!

We have never had an issue with our feeding program or "crystals". Like I said, we use Purina for everything else, so we tried that first and it worked so we stuck with it. We don't show wethers, only feed out a couple dozen a year we pick up at the sale barn for cheap, so there may be a more optimal feeding program for them, but this has been cost effective for us. I would think someone who shows wethers at the majors down south would have more input on that end of things. Also remember that like cattle, they need a good salt and mineral regimen. This can have a huge impact on conception and reproductive health, not to mention hoof and joint maintenance.

Our website is down for updates, so I will post some pictures of our stock later in the week. We will be kidding out about 20 of our does the start of October, so we will soon have lots of hoofed monkeys running around! Glad to answer any questions I can for you!