If you've never heard two intact Bucks arguing over who gets the honor of ahem, making babies, then you are in for a treat.

I've had the bucks since they were a few months old and the first time I heard it I was confused because I thought some human kid was in my barn. I swear it sounds like my goats speak English sometimes and I was fortunate to capture pretty much the whole convo.

The white and black one is the stronger of the two but they are both murmuring back and forth at each other.

Is that doe in heat?

You learn pretty quick what your doe's "normal" behavior is so it's usually easy to tell when they are in heat. Why you would care is if you wanted to control the pregnancy and you keep your bucks separated which most people do or if you need to rent a buck or take your doe to a buck. In this one's case these are two unrelated bucks and I like them both for different reasons so I really don't care who wins the fight. Some tell tale signs your doe is in heat:

• Tail Twitching - You can see in the video but its a lot more than normal and if she weren't in heat she would tuck her tail mostly
• Extra Bleating - The first heat cycle I experienced I was such a nervous new goat farmer I thought something was wrong because she would not shut up
• More Tolerant - If she was not in heat then she will fight back against the bucks aggressively. I have not seen a "Standing" heat yet but they've been pretty close

That randy billy goat

Ask any goat farmer whether they own a buck or not and they will tell you that they are nasty. A buck will also tell you if a doe is in heat and get very rapey otherwise they pretty much ignore the doe. Not only do they murmur at each other and the doe but they will huff which sounds just as rude as it is. Sometimes they try to romance the doe by whispering sweet nothings and rubbing their necks together. Other times it seems like they are only interested barking and biting flanks.

They ALWAYS keep a fresh spritz of their own urine on their face, mouth, and beard. The ladies love this apparently.

They smell or taste a doe's urine if they can intercept the stream and they pee in their own mouth like a waterpik and make an ohh face

I should've paid more attention to the section "Reasons Not to Keep a Buck" in Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats!!!

FYI - A goat heat cycle is 14 - 19 days and you should mark it on a calendar once you learn to identify it. The gestation period is almost exactly 150 days +/- a few days

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