Posted by Sam on July 11, 2000 at 01:51:07:
In Reply to: doe breeding problems posted by Jean on July 09, 2000 at 06:46:50:
For the past three years our herd has also had problems with false pregnancy. It could not be traced to a single buck, age group, or breed. As with your vet our vet was stumped. It seemed that the better the condition of the doe and the higher producers ie; looking a million dollars and really pumping out the milk around mating time were the ones affected. Our herd of 270 odd does in the first year had 25 false pregnancies, 62 the second year, and 29 this year. Each year it is different does so that should give you some hope for your girls! Our does are kept in a controlled environment and are all fed the same feed etc. It's not just our farm either. Another farm we know had 53 out of 600 this year. They have been in goats for 15 years and never seen it before. We scan all our does (as do most farms here now) 42 days after the bucks are taken out and any empties are injected with Lutelase to bring them on and re-mated. On the scan a false pregnancy will look like bubbles of water where kids should be and seems to be an early reabsorbtion of kids before bone is formed but the water bag remains and increases in size as a normal pregnancy would. The does get bigger but never produce kids although in our herd many dropped some pink water and came up in milk again. We actually ended up milking them through for two years no problem. The only other way we have found to detect this is that the does don't start to dry off as they normally would if heavy in kid. Also a doe heavy in kid walks with a labouring sway! Those false jobs while as big as whales still were quite light footed! I posted this very same question on dairygoats.com recently and it was suggested that with the weather changing these past few years certian plants that wouldn't normally be around at mating time are present or that the clover may be more potent. Unfortunately we have done a heap of research and there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason! Antibiotics doesn't seem to be a factor either. If you are really not sure can't you just milk them through? If they start to drop in milk it could be they are in kid. Even if they are in kid and you keep milking it's doesn't seem to affect them especially if they are kept in top condition as it sounds your does are. We have done this and found does with kids come milking time one morning - no problem as long as she is looked after!
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