[toaster]

I have two pygmy goats and several sheep
The male goat is castrated but recently he has developed some strange behaviour towards the female goat and also the ewes
He has started to boss over them, if one strays too far he brings it back all the time making a strange grunting sound sometimes with his tongue sticking out
When a ewe got stuck in the fence he was laid by her in the morning when I arrived like he was protecting her, he then did the grunting thing and chased her around when she was freed
He has also started to mount the ewes
Could it be that his castration wasnt fully sucessful?
 
 
 
 
 

[Brucklay]

No not necessarily, I have two billys in a separate paddock next to my nine girls and three wethers, just because they have had bits removed doesn't mean they don't want to try - he just is the male ln the block doing what he can!!

[toaster]

Thats a relief then thank you. I guess as long as he doesnt injure any of the others with his over-exuberence I just leave him to it
 
The plus side is that he has got a lot less pushy with us since he has got interested in the females, he used to jump up a lot and be pushy with food but doesnt anymore

[jaykay]

As Brucklay says, it could just be boyish behaviour.

But I castrated two goats, or at least, I was there when they were done. They were done with a burdizzo  (omg, horrible, will never do that again) and it was done thoroughly and properly.

My boys started behaving boy-sterously and when I checked their bits, there seemed to be something there. So I took them to the vets to be done and they still had 3 1/2 between them  You could see the white line in the hair where the clamp had been (on dark goats). And the scar tissue. But they definitely still had apparently functional balls.

And I have ringed a number of shetland lambs last year, still got them here now, some successfully and some not as has become apparent as they've grown up.

So, unless he was surgically castrated by a vet, I wouldn't take for granted that he's 'safe'.  I'm sure people are more experienced and successful at doing it than me - but then again, some might not be.

[Lesley Silvester]

I had a German shepherd (yes, I know that's not a goat - I'm not that drunk  ) who not only tried but managed to mount my bitch so yes, they do get the urge.

[wytsend]

Afraid the only safe way is to surgically castrate........any I'm doing are done at the same time as disbudding so no extra charge.

[Anke]

If he was ringed early on it is possible that he still has one or both of his balls internally. They must be tiny on a pygmy kid anyway.... does he smell? So he can mount and serve the girls (incl the sheep), but is likely to be infertile (due to the higher body temperature his semen would most likely - buut not certainly so - sterile).
I would have thought that for pygmies the only safe method would be surgical removal. I get my (dairy goat) boys ringed by the vet at disbudding, and that has worked well so far.

[goosepimple]

Stupid question coming up - after what Anke has said it sprung to mind - what does happen if a male goat serves a ewe - nothing?  Are they just two different species and so the genes cannot 'fuse'?  Told you it was stupid (not me of course, just the question). 

[ballingall]

It's not a stupid question goose pimple. Goats and sheep are similar enough that it can happen, and pregnancy can occur. But it is highly, highly unusual for any offspring to be born. Usually the pregnancy will fail after a few weeks. There was supposed to be goat/sheep cross born in Germany I think 2 or 3 years ago, but not sure what happened to it.


They're called a shoat or a geep- depending on which way round the parentage is.


BethBeth

[ballingall]

There's even a Wikipedia page!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep-goat_hybrid

[jaykay]

They have different numbers of chromosomes, so every time the cell divided there would be a mismatch. Apparently it doesn't happen for that reason (despite the Wikipedia page), but there are goats and sheep that look so similar that this is where the suspicion has arisen.

Hence also the phrase 'sorting the sheep from the goats' 

[Lesley Silvester]

Interesting to read about though.

Incidentally, the phrase about sorting sheep from goats comes from the Bible.

[goosepimple]

Well, that's a learning curve on lots of items there!  And OH has just chipped in with a 'liger' (lion and tiger cross) and then he lied to the gullible me about lamas being a cross between a sheep and a camel          - well I always think a Texel looks like a cross between a bull calf and an axminster carpet 

[jaykay]

the phrase about sorting sheep from goats comes from the Bible

It does, and you can see why they had to work at it, when you look at the sort of sheep they have in the middle east.