The Right Time

You may be wondering, "When is the right time to breed my young doe?" or "How young is too young to breed?".

The general rule of thumb for does is: A fit(not chubby) 80lbs or 1+ years old. The reasoning for this is so their frame will be the correct size/width for ease of kidding. Sometimes, like with humans, even when they are the right size/age, they just don't have the right framing for ease of kidding. It is a good idea to learn from either your vet or a long time/experienced goat owner, what good Pin Bone -> Thurl -> Hip Bone spacing should be for the breed you own. The basic rule of thumb is that from their hips to their pin bones should be 1/3 of their body's length. *Remember this, along with looking at her teats and dam's udder, when picking out a doe or doeling that you are planning to use for breeding.

The general rule of thumb for bucks is: When they start acting like a buck and are tall enough to accomplish their task. This is typically around 4-6 months old, depending upon the breed.

Now, keep in mind, kids can and will start breeding as young as 7 weeks old. Some doelings are fertile by this age, so it is always a good idea to seperate the boys from the girls once they reach 7 weeks old.

I personally take size/maturity into consideration much more strongly than age. (Obviously I use common sense, I'm not going to purposefully breed a three or four month old no matter how big she is!) I want a doeling looking like a doe and not a baby before she is bred--she needs sufficient width through the pelvis and body capacity to safely carry the pregnancy and deliver the kid. So even if she is big weight/height-wise, if she doesn't have that mature look to her, I prefer to hold off.

Since I raise full size dairy goats, who are only fertile seasonally, waiting until one year old or more is not really feasible in many cases. I try to have my kids born as early in the year as possible so that they are as old as possible by next breeding season. It's kind of expensive to miss out on breeding a doeling her first fall and then have to feed her a whole year while she is unproductive, because after about December/January, they don't come into heat again until the next fall. Yes, I love my goats and care about their health, and I don't take serious risks with breeding too young, but it comes down to feed being VERY expensive since I do not live where there is pasture, and I keep goats as working animals, not as pets, and an animal that can't earn its feed is not much good to me. So my ideal is to have doelings born in January and then bred around October/November their first fall. The key to doing this successfully is to have goats of good conformation and feed them well for maximum growth.

I also had the unfortunate experience of an accidental too-early breeding. I had a LaMancha/Oberhasli mix doe get bred by accident at four months old. She was very tiny (only about 25 pounds) because of a parasite problem we had that year, but she was very mature looking and had excellent conformation. She carried the baby, a single doeling, fine, and gave birth without any help, but the baby was stillborn due to the other health issues that were going on in the herd at the same time. (I inherited a lot of problems with my herd...) So in my case, it came out all right, but that isn't always the case...the moral of the story is to keep those boys safely contained away from the girls!