Back From the Vet: Doe Breeding Soundness

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To help ensure healthy kids, have your does in optimum condition for breeding, pregnancy, and kidding with a doe breeding soundness exam.
Before breeding, bucks are often the focus of attention, ensuring they are in optimum condition to perform. But a sound and fertile buck is one of many things necessary to produce an excellent crop of kids.
To help ensure healthy kids, have your does in optimum condition for breeding, pregnancy, and kidding. A general examination of each animal provides information about health and fitness. Assess does for body condition, hoof health, udder health, dental health, and evidence of infectious disease or parasites. Identifying issues before breeding provides time to improve condition before the added physical stress of pregnancy. A doe going into pregnancy healthy will have a much better opportunity to raise healthy kids than a doe with any health concerns.
Some anti-parasitic medications are not safe for use during pregnancy. Identifying and treating affected animals before breeding ensures that these does can maintain their condition through pregnancy stress.
Body condition and nutrition play a pivotal role in doe fertility. Overly thin or overly fat does have decreased fertility as well as decreased overall health. Maintaining an ideal body condition ensures that a doe can handle the stress of pregnancy. Does should go into breeding at a body condition score of 2.5-3.0. If a doe is overly thin, increase her body condition before breeding or during early pregnancy to ensure she has the condition to maintain a healthy pregnancy. Reduce body condition of overly fat does before pregnancy rather than during.
Also assess a doe’s udder for firm lumps or masses before breeding. These can indicate scarring, which decreases milk production. Ideally, owners should remove animals with poor udders from the breeding herd. If a genetically valuable doe has poor udder conformation, identify her before breeding, so her kids can be given supplemental colostrum and milk early to ensure appropriate nutrition.
Also, assess does for infectious diseases before breeding. Chronic diseases like caprine arthritis and encephalitis (CAE) or caseous lymphadenitis (CL) can pass from doe to kid. Testing animals before breeding allows you to reduce the spread of the disease and ensure that their kids receive non-contaminated milk, as milk can pass the infection on to kids. Removing infected animals from a herd is ideal.
Infestations of internal and external parasites can significantly decrease fertility and affect body condition. When assessing before breeding, FAMACHA scoring can identify animals requiring treatment for internal parasites. The use of fecal assessment can also help with identifying heavily infested animals. Some anti-parasitic medications are not safe for use during pregnancy. Identifying and treating affected animals before breeding ensures that does can maintain their condition through pregnancy stress and can reduce the risk of infecting kids with internal parasites after birth. External parasites are often most prevalent during winter when many does in the Northern hemisphere are pregnant. Have a treatment plan that is safe for pregnant does.
Identifying issues before breeding provides time to improve condition before the added physical stress of pregnancy.
Does transfer protective antibodies to kids through colostrum, or the first milk. To provide kids with the best protection, immunize does for common conditions. In every herd, this should include vaccination for Clostridium perfringens type C and D and Clostridium tetani, provided within the CD and T toxoid. Give this vaccine 30 days before kidding to ensure protection passes into the colostrum. In does that have never been vaccinated, also give it before breeding, ideally in a series of two vaccinations, three to four weeks apart. In herds experiencing difficulty with abortions due to infectious diseases, such as chlamydia, vaccinating for these conditions should be done before breeding. Consult your veterinarian to develop a vaccination protocol specific to your herd.
Healthy breeding animals ensures optimum fertility, but flushing can further increase fertility in health animals. Flushing offers increased concentrate or quality in the diet for roughly one month before and through the breeding period. This increase in energy in the diet increases body condition and ovulation, resulting in an increased number of multiples born to does. Many people also employ the “ram effect,” or in the case of goats, the buck effect. Owners can bring goats into estrus by introducing bucks after a prolonged period without exposure to males. This technique can get does into estrus at an abnormal time or encourage synchronization of does for a shorter breeding season. Flushing and the ram effect can ensure that does breed early in the breeding season with maximum fertility.
Pregnancy is a considerable stress on a doe, especially when having multiples. Entering pregnancy in ideal condition will improve the likelihood of a healthy doe and kids on the other side. If you still need to get a pre-breeding exam protocol, now is the time to begin one. If you are unsure of where to start, contact your herd veterinarian. They can provide resources regarding body condition scoring and how to improve, deworming protocols, vaccine protocols, and more. If you does are doing well, but you want a shorter kidding period or multiple births, consider utilizing flushing or the “ram effect” before breeding.
Originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.