So my kids are getting into 4-h and we've been attending chicken, goat, pig, meetings and what not. So I had an interesting conversation with a guy at the goat meeting. He and his family raise goats for milk and apparently it's a big deal. Lot's of folks do it. He said they only keep the females and they pay for someone to bring a male goat to breed the females when in heat. As it pertains to deer hunting goats and deer have similiar breeding cycles and behavior. So he said when one of his females is going to come into heat he brings the male goat in. For the record, male goats are pretty rank, they smell musty, pissy, down right rutty. So really nothing unexpected there but the way the other females respond to the male goat is pretty interesting. He stated that within a few days of being around that rutty male his other females that were not in heat will come into heat even if that is not their normal cycle. We often hear so much talk about photoperiod, the moon, cold fronts, rut triggers, etc. I'm not trying to discredit those things at all I just find it eye opening that it's possible the rut itself mignt actually cause a spike in the rut. I don't know that it will change how I hunt but it might, say for example one farm is scraped up and showing lots of sign and another farm isn't. In the past I probably would have just said oh it's young bucks or perimeter scraping or whatever. But if those does are around a bunch of pissy scrapes and rutty bucks maybe it's worth paying more attention to to try and hunt the front side when the does comes in it could be like a domino effect and I'd love to be around a block when the first does are coming into heat. Anyway, that is all...
