Pregnancy diagnosis of goats..... why bother?

Hebe more interested in food than the Vet

Its just over two months since Hebe and Acorn were mated and they've shown no sign of oestrus since so they are probably pregnant. But you can't 100% sure that lack of oestrus means pregnancy so I asked Kenny the Vet to check with his ultra-sound kit. The unit emits ultra sound waves from a hand held transducer placed against the skin of the abdomen. But with our hairy and slightly overweight Toggs he couldn't get a reading.

We've had to go for the lab based approach, some hormones are elevated during pregnancy and can be detected in the blood, samples were taken and there'll be a result in ten days or so.

You might think,"why bother you could just wait for the kids to turn up". But knowing when  kids are due gives us an accurate date for drying off Pia, two months before kidding she has a holiday from milk production. It also helps with the accurate timing of vaccines and extra feed.