Pondering Pickles

Pickles isn't my favorite goat lately.

Heck, who am I kidding.  Pickles isn't my favorite goat any day.  The constant hollering is just maddening.  The fact that she was only a so-so mother is disappointing.  And apparently now I can't get her bred.

She went into heat two times in September but I didn't have her bred then because I did not want February kids.  But since then, I haven't been able to catch her in heat again.  Even if I can't catch the does in heat, I can usually tell because the bucks go all batshitcrazy when someone cycles in.

So now I'm starting to worry.  Why hasn't Pickles gone back into heat?  Goats are supposed to be in season for several months, so why did she only show in September?  Is she just a crappy goat?  Is she somehow doing this to piss me off?  Is the Universe giving me a hint and should I just eat her sorry ass?

What other reason, besides already being bred, would there be for her not to come into heat again?  Could this be an Immaculate Caprine Conception?

The bucks are separated from the does by a cattle panel fence and no one has managed to get out, so I ruled "Accidental Escapee" out.  Do I have a "Ninja Buck Goat"?  Could one of them have gotten out and then somehow managed to get back in their pen?  Doubtful, not only because I'm sure there would have been some obvious damage to the panels, but once the buck had access to the does there's no way in hell he'd voluntarily go back in his pen.

At this moment we only have the two Boer bucks on the homestead, but last month we had Deuce Bigalow, the Nigerian Dwarf rent-a-buck here as well.  Could one of the bucks have managed to get his dinkey-do into such a position that the doe could have backed up to the fence and been bred that way?  I'm sure stranger things have happened, but I've run countless scenarios in my head on how it could have occurred and it just doesn't seem physically possible.

So now I'm undecided as what to do with Pickles.  It's getting pretty late for breeding.  I don't think I want kids born in the middle of May when there are a bunch of flies and parasites.  But then I don't want to wait another year.  She's not a pet; she's supposed to be cranking out yummy meat to fill our freezer.  I can make her go into heat by giving her a shot of Lutalyse, but then if she was somehow pregnant, that shot would terminate the pregnancy....which could have already been three months along.  I wish there was an EPT goat pregnancy test available, but it looks like if I want a positive answer I'm going to have to do a blood draw and send it in to a lab.  It only costs $6.50 plus the shipping of the vial of blood, so I may just do that in the next few days.  Besides, it would be a good learning experience as I've never drawn blood before.