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Post by Julie on Jan 18, 2014 20:59:17 GMT -5
Weird question -
Last night when I went out to check the barnyard, my 6 month old Dexter bull calf and his buddy, a 6 month old Dexter steer calf, were taking turns mounting my nanny goat! To put it mildly, I was quite alarmed! First question: why was nanny goat allowing this? And second question: what got into the boys??? I was able to separate the boys from the goats last night, and didn't see any more of this bizarre activity today. Has anyone seen this before? I am afraid the boys might hurt the goat...not to mention that I don't want to watch that sort of activity! Any advice would be appreciated.
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Post by wagradexters on Jan 18, 2014 21:44:13 GMT -5
Human morality does not apply to the animal kingdom. They were practicing and playing at normal animal behaviour purely and simply because they were presented with the opportunity to do so. Seperating the species as you did removes the opportunity. I presume the doe was in season but if she is very familiar with the calves she may just be super tolerant
Margaret
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Post by blessings farms on Jan 19, 2014 5:37:07 GMT -5
We have same thing happen in reverse. Our mini nubian bucks (75 # / 50 #) do this with our 9 month heifer (650)approx. every 28 days. I have not been too concerned. In your case I would pen nanny up while in heat if this is the issue. I am concerned about our Jersey steers when they are heavier.
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Post by Julie on Jan 19, 2014 8:01:27 GMT -5
Yes, mostly I was just worried about them hurting my old nanny goat - she is at least 10 years old and I am not breeding her any more, so I guess I will just have to watch out for her. It is funny because the Dexter calves mount each other and I don't think twice about that, but it never occurred to me that they would choose the goat. I am bummed because I planned to leave the calves with the goats and now I will have to watch them carefully since we have several "special needs" goats that physically shouldn't have to deal with the bull calf advances. Ahhh, life on the farm...
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Post by Julie on Jan 19, 2014 20:16:29 GMT -5
Hah, Gene! I have waaay too many goats right now - 15 plus 5 new babies! So the nanny goat in question is the boss leader of the goat herd (I finally got rid of my billy this fall) the bull and steer calf have been in with the goats on and off all fall/winter, so I guess maybe they have just officially achieved puberty! I didn't think that different species pheromones would be noticeable, but I guess they are. Oh well, just glad my young riding students weren't around during the inter-species mating attempt...I am sure I would have turned red trying to explain that!
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