We’ve been thinking about breeding our goats recently, and the more we look into it, the more it seems there is to know about the process.
There are so many different things you need to be aware of, be looking out for, and be able to identify.
Mating seasons are often short, and can easily pass you by if you aren’t paying attention or don’t know what to look for.
Everyone knows that females go into heat—but males go into rut, too, and knowing how long that lasts is one of the most important parts of breeding goats.
So, how long does goat rut last?
While it can depend on the breed, in general, once they reach sexual maturity, bucks are ready to breed at any time in their breeding life. They may go into periods of heightened sexual desire, but ultimately, most males are always in rut once they are mature.
When it comes to breeding, you’re generally going to have a harder time identifying the stages and cycles of your doe’s heat rather than the male’s rut.
Males know when females are most susceptible and most likely to conceive via intercourse, and so they may behave “ruttier” at that time.
Let’s look further into this.
How long do goats rut?
This question is a natural one that new goat breeders ask, since it is common knowledge that many females of certain mammal species go into special periods of sexual susceptibility.
This is what’s known as heat, and is part of their estrus cycle which repeats roughly every 21 days.
Males don’t work in quite the same way.
The female’s cycle is to do with its reproductive capability, and the point at which they are in heat is the point at which they are most likely to conceive through mating.
Naturally, males’ reproductive organs have only one real job, whereas the female’s has to support a gestating fetus.
So, the simplest way of thinking about it is that a male goat is always in rut.
If it senses a female is receptive, it will want to mate with them.
For domestic goats, you will need to take measures to ensure aggressive behavior is curbed.
If you are set on breeding your goats, then you may have to accept that a full-grown buck may be too boisterous or aggressive to directly interact with.
How can you tell if a goat is in rut?
Since a male goat is, really, always in rut once it has reached sexual maturity, what you need to look out for is signs from the female that she is in heat.
The male goats will know the signs even better than you, and it is at this time that you will see them behaving differently.
They may try to impress the females and get their attention, vocalizing loudly, butting heads with things, or they may just go straight in and try to mate with the female.
Keeping a male, though, is really about knowing how to deal with his behavior at all times.
Most who keep males as companions castrate them at an early age to curb aggressive behaviors.
Since your goat won’t be neutered, the simple fact is that it’s going to be more difficult to deal with.
So, what age do they reach maturity, then?
What age do goat bucks go into rut?
It can vary quite a lot, and it can often happen quite early.
Generally, bucks will come into puberty around 3-4 months old.
The following process can then be quite fast or quite slow.
In many cases, 4-month-old bucks are receptive and ready to mate, and can even conceive.
You’re generally still best waiting a while, though, even if the male does seem to have entered its rut.
Most of the time, though, it won’t be until about a year of age that a goat is fully ready to mate.
This gives it all the time it needs to mature behaviorally, too, so that you don’t risk creating an aggressive goat by mating it too early and making it possessive.
You should, naturally, be carefully sectioning off the goats, in any case, and controlling reproductive decisions.
How often will they go into rut, then?
How often do goats go into rut?
You can take a couple of simple answers to this question.
The first is that once they enter their rut, from 6 months to a year old, they never come out of it.
From that point on, they are always ready and willing to breed with females.
They are never not in their rut.
The other answer is to again look at how the male’s rut relates to the female’s heat.
Males will become more domineering and active when a female is in heat, so you can think of the rut as happening roughly every 21 days, following the cycle of the female’s heat.
Males are more or less always ready to go, in any case.
So, as you can see, the simplest answer is that male goats are pretty much always ready to mate.
It is the females you need to keep an eye on.
They are the ones who go through a recognizable cycle, at different points of which they will have different desires.
The males, though, are not just completely boisterous and demanding of the female’s attention—for the most part, anyway.
You must learn to interpret a male’s behavior just as well as a female’s, but they are mostly always in rut.