JOYNIM FARM Goat Farming, Cattle Farm, Laying Hens, Quail Farm, Gardening
Why do we have to be able to detect goat pregnancy?
We must be able to distinguish whether goats are pregnant or fat. both are different things.
Fat goats will deposit fat in various parts of their body. For example around the spine and chest.
If the goat is super fat, then we can hardly feel the ribs and backbone.
Pregnant goats are usually not that fat. In fact, goats that are too fat will usually have difficulty getting pregnant.
How to detect goat pregnancy is a tricky thing. For those who are accustomed, goat pregnancy can be known from the lust cycle.
This method is the easiest step to detect goat pregnancy.
Sometimes, goats do not experience regular lust cycles. Therefore if this happens, it will be difficult to determine whether the goat is pregnant or not.
In early pregnancy, the goat will actually show signs that he is pregnant. Physically, signs of goat pregnancy will be seen. But it requires quite a lot of experience to be able to know this.
This goat pregnancy as soon as possible should be known. But it cannot be done in the near future. At least it takes about 3 weeks since mating to ensure it.
Why is this necessary and important? Because:
1. The faster the goat pregnancy is detected, the more we can focus on treatment. This means that the reproductive organs of goats are still normal and breeding activities can continue.
2. If pregnancy failure occurs repeatedly, we can immediately decide on the steps that need to be taken. For example, female goats are sold, cut or fattened.
3. Cut costs and production time. The selling price of the female goat does not differ much from the purchase price, if there are no offspring or the conditions are super fat.
For an elderly gestational age, identification is quite easy. Because physically, the difference starts to appear. But do we have to wait that long, 3 months?
I think everyone also knows that when a goat is pregnant, its stomach gets bigger. Because this enlarged abdomen will pull the skin on the navel. So that the navel also looks enlarged.
In addition to an enlarged abdomen, we can see the condition of the goat udder. 3 months gestational age, udder will begin to look filled and fall.
But for goats who are pregnant for the first time, such a thing rarely happens.
At least the udder is filled when it really approaches the birth week.
There are several signs or steps that we can take to find out our beloved goat pregnancy. These things are as we explain below.
1 . How to detect pregnancy in goats from the lust cycle?
How to determine whether our goats are pregnant or not can be seen from the lust cycle.
The first way is the fastest and cheapest way. Because everyone can do it.
Provided we remember the day and date when the last goat was mated.
If within approximately 3 weeks the goat does not show signs of lust, your goat is likely pregnant.
In this case, make sure that the goat is in good health. Because it could be, not the appearance of signs of lust caused by infection or other diseases.
In the early days of pregnancy, goats show clear signs if we always observe our goat livestock.
A pregnant goat shows an increased appetite than usual. Also, he became more quiet and calm.
Detection of pregnant goats by the lust cycle is the best method, in my opinion. Fast, cheap and accurate.
Because of a study of Egyptian Baladi goats, out of 110 goats mated, pregnancy was detected most quickly after 19.5 days after mating. [1]
Even then, the test was carried out using an ultrasound device.
It does not compare the lust cycle method with ultrasonography. But, both methods are the same.
If the goat does not bleat (ask for remating) after 3 weeks, the goat is most likely pregnant.
The difference is that in the lust cycle, we can be sure that the goat’s stomach has contents after a slightly older gestational age.
Whereas in the ultrasound method, we can be more sure and know that pregnant goats have contents (fetuses) from the start. So be more sure because the ultrasound test results are accompanied by the results of test images.
2 Detect goat pregnancy from goat anus
If you believe your goat is in good health but shows no sign of lust, then you can check the goat pregnancy in another way.
During the two to three month pregnancy period, some goats do not show any noticeable difference. If this happens, then we can check the goat pregnancy from the form of the anus and vagina.
This method is effectively carried out at goat pregnancy between 2-3 months. However, some goats do not show signs of pregnancy through this.
Anus goats who are pregnant position will stay away from the tail location. While the vagina will look longer. You will see this difference if we compare the picture in early pregnancy and 2-3 months of pregnancy.
3 . Detects signs of goat pregnancy from milk production
For dairy goats, other than the signs above, there are other signs to detect goat pregnancy.
Dairy goats who are pregnant usually decline in milk production.
The udders of pregnant goats will shrink. The udder will start to fall and enlarge at around 15 weeks of gestation or more than 3 months.
The methods above are ways we can do to find out the signs of a pregnant goat.
However, the method above can be said to be less accurate. That’s because it requires quite a lot of experience in raising goats.
4 . Detection of goat pregnancy with a stethoscope
This method may only be done by veterinarians. A stethoscope can be used to determine the heart rate of kids who are still in the womb.
Currently, many stethoscopes are sold at very cheap prices. You can try to find it in existing online stores.
This method is done by placing a stethoscope probe on the right abdomen of the goat. Because the left abdomen is part of the goat’s rumen.
If you hear a heartbeat, then your goat can be paired with pregnant.
A more accurate way is with a urine or blood test. Also, it can use ultrasonography. However, this method requires a fee and is not recommended for small farmers.
Besides being expensive, electronic equipment like that also has a standard error.
How expensive is this tool? Please look for info yourself. I help one of the brands that can be searched is Draminsky Ultrasound Scanner.
What I mean by standard error is that the accuracy of such tools is not always 100%.
An example is the case below.
There have been studies to test the accuracy of such ultrasound devices.
Of a total of 88 female goats mated, pregnancy testing by ultrasonography can be seen in the table below. [2]
| 1 | True positive | 28 ekor |
| 2 | False positive | 6 ekor |
| 3 | False negetive | 12 |
| 4 | True negative | 34 |
From the data above, there are misdiagnoses in numbers 2 and 3. In total, there are 18 goats whose diagnosis is inaccurate.
I don’t know whether the operator made a mistake or because of poor production management.
It could be that the goat was originally diagnosed pregnant, but when the treatment of the fetus dies and so on.
So, in my opinion, detecting the most effective and inexpensive goat pregnancy is by observing the lust cycle of the goat.
All of the core methods are the same, that is, as long as the goat does not ask for remarriage, it is pregnant.
But, what if the goat is not pregnant and also does not ask for remarriage?
Try to check the feed first. The quality of the feed greatly affects the goat lust.
If the goat is very thin, first improve the condition of the body score.
When the body score has improved but still shows no symptoms of lust, it might be time to call a vet.
