# Freemartin/Hermaphrodite Doeling



## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I was over at a friend's house today, pulling blood on a few does for preg checks. There was a 9 month doeling there for breeding that was bought this spring/summer from that friend. She decided to pull blood on her to check for pregnancy because she has not seen her come in heat since she's been there (not sure for how long). She is a polled doeling from a cross between a horned doe and a polled buck. She was from triplets 2 does/1 buck. I thought to check out her backside, and her teats look pretty small, I think she may be either a herm or a freemartin. Her vulva did not seem exactly right either. How can you tell the difference between the two? Does anybody here have pictures of either condition? I have seen the ones on Tracy's facebook for her freemartin doeling. I would like to see vulva pictures too if anybody has some. Not that it matters much either way, but how can you tell the difference between these two? I don't know anybody nearby with a speculum, is there another way to check inside? I seem to remember reading something about a "pencil test"?


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## NorthOf49 (Feb 8, 2011)

I think some other people have seen this before: Vicki mentioned that the vulva is generally smaller. I have one and I can get some pictures of her vulva in a few days if you like... 

I think the condition can exhibit differently. In my case, her vaginal tract simply deadends about an inch in. I couldn't insert a CIDR on her so I had the vet out and as soon as she tried to insert a finger she signed her off. She called it vaginal hypoplasia (hypo being 'too little' and plasia being 'tissue'. Gotta love the jargon ). Visually she has a small vulva: it's short and puckered. Beautiful doeling otherwise, darn her. 

The breeder is giving me a doeling from the same dam next spring as replacement so I'm not completely out of pocket: hopefully the breeder of the doeling your talking about will replace the doeling too if that's the case. I know I didn't get a contract before I bought this girl so legally the breeder was under no obligation to replace her since it was never specified that she had to be breeding sound. Just assumed! I did have to pay for the vet for the breeding soundness exam though. 

This doe came from a quad kidding: 3 does, 1 buck. The theory (from what I read and understood (I'm not the sharpest crayon on my good days) and it's just theory because there's absolutely no testing and not enough records kept) is that the doe shared a placenta with the buck and was therefore exposed to too much testosterone which stunted the growth of her reproductive tract. 

That's pretty much what I gleaned reading on the 'net.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

A hermaphrodite has some equipment from both sexes. A freemartin will appear female but will be missing some important parts and will be sterile.


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

Put on a glove, be nice and use some lube -- if you cannot get your full finger into that doeling, then she is no good.

I have one myself I need to get butchered.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

But a hemaphrodite just like a free martin may appear perfectly female without outward signs she in fact has testicles in her abdomen, a penis up inside her vuvla, or the vagina goes nowhere. Yes we had a hemaphrodite female as our first goat, she had a female vulva and male testicles and we called her "hotlips" because she exhibited male blubbering etc... I have also seen a free martin who had a smaller than normal, tipped up more than normal vulva whose vagina went nowhere. Vicki


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Is there no way to tell which condition a goat is exhibiting? I would think it would be useful information when deciding whether to repeat a breeding or not.

Oh no Tracy, which doeling is it?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Unless you can find a penis in the vagina, just open them up when you put them down, even out of curiosity sake, although finding testicles in the abdomen, you would be hard pressed not to think they are ovaries. You likely would need someone more learnered to look at them and tell, other than testilces do not have fallopian tubes. Vicki


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

The true freemartings never seem to get bucky at all -- they simply are just there. Sort of like a good gelding ;-)
A hermaphrodite will show buckiness -- and you can usually find those testicles in them somewhere that is producing the testosterone. Or you look in the "vagina" and find a penis.

But yeah, without opening them up, you can't say which they really are.


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2011)

I had a true freemartin once, she never showed any buckiness...ever...... she did not have a penis or testicles... she had a vaginal tract that just ended... I did the pencil/finger lube test on her... She went to freezer and made good sausage... 
Barb


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Don sectioned the glands we found in Andrea since we also found no female reproductive organs beyond the blind canal. They were buried in fat and looked rather like fatty kidneys of a young goat. 
They were indeed testicular tissues and well developed. She had normal heats but never settled which is odd as we never found ovaries- where were the signals coming from to cycle without anything to make eggs? She was stout but not overtly buckish other than her very recent bullying behavior. 
The key for me as to what her issue was came when the buck just beat her up rather than breeding her.
She was soliciting and flagging and nuzzling and he just beat her away. It was so odd...
I said to myself...he thinks she is a buck...and bam I realized why she never settled. 
Sure enough once we got in there....she was not all the way a she. 
First one in all these years.
Lee


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## grandmajo (May 22, 2008)

Lee, maybe this explains your doe's heats?

From Wikipedia - Some estrogens are also produced in smaller amounts by other tissues such as the liver, adrenal glands, and the breasts. These secondary sources of estrogens are especially important in postmenopausal women. Fat cells also produce estrogen.

The three major naturally occurring estrogens in women are estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), and estriol (E3)Estrone is produced during menopause, estradiol is the predominant form in nonpregnant females, and estriol is the primary estrogen of pregnancy.

Then if you looks at estradiol it says: During the reproductive years, most estradiol in women is produced by the granulosa cells of the ovaries by the aromatization of androstenedione (produced in the theca folliculi cells) to estrone, followed by conversion of estrone to estradiol by 17?-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. Smaller amounts of estradiol are also produced by the adrenal cortex, and (in men), by the testes.

Estradiol is not produced in the gonads only: In both sexes, testosterone is converted by aromatization to estradiol. In particular, fat cells are active to convert precursors to estradiol, and will continue to do so even after menopause. Estradiol is also produced in the brain and in arterial walls.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Thank you Jonell~
I did not translate it to goats but had read similar stuff when researching menopause about hormones made other places.
Thank goodness that happens for us old ladies who don't want to do HRT!
Thanks! Sad to say the dogs are enjoying lots of goat stew this winter 
Lee


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

Is there ever any issue with these animals' urethra not being properly connected such that they are unable to pass urine at birth?


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## grandmajo (May 22, 2008)

My sister had a bull calf with this problem Nicki. He was a feeder calf that they got from a dairy farm, after about 3 days they noticed that he was swelling and not peeing. The vet came out and that's what he told them, there was nowhere for the urine to go.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

I have read a bit about freemartin heifers. These are sterile females which grew in the same horn of the uterus with a male calf. The uterus in cattle is shaped more like a Y and not a pear-shaped organ as it is in humans. A female which grows in the same horn as a male, is exposed to the testosterone of the male 
She is a female and will appear normal, but she will be sterile, her vagina, uterus and ovaries failing to have matured properly.

The hermaphrodite usually is the result of having an extra sex chromosome, XXY. So it is relatively rare. Animals which have XYY are male, appear male and are usually overly aggressive. (they have studied men inprisoned for comitting violent crimes and found that many more of them as compared to the general population have this chromosomal abnormality. Their bodies make lots of extra testosterone) These defects of the chromosomes occur when the gametes are forming by the process of meiosis when the chromosomes fail to separate properly. The XXY defect is intersexed, having some secondary sex characteristics of a female, but having developed male primary sex organs, even if the testes are carried within the abdominal cavity like ovaries. "Women" who are like this can be discovered when they fail to reach menarchy. They appear female and may even have developed breasts (gynecomastia) They undergo an exam to find out that they have a blind vagina with testes inside rather than ovaries. Technically, they are men, not women. Hermaphrodites in goats can sometimes be spotted by a larger than usual, bulbous appearing clitoris, which is actually a rudimentary penis. The embryonic tissue which forms the penis when the developing embryo is exposed to testosterone or the clitoris when it is not, are one and the same tissue; as are the embryonic tissues which form into the testes or ovaries. The embryonic tissue which forms the scrotum in males is the same tissue which will become the labia in females.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I didn't know that about cows having uterus like goats. So why with two horns are not twins in cattle the norm? Has it been bred out of them?


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

There are a lot of interesting things in reproduction. For example, armadillos have a uterus with only one spot for a single egg to attach. However, they always have genetically identical quadruplets, because the embryo divides after implantation. They think this is because when they evolved, there wasn't enough food or the environment wasn't right for them to support more than one baby, but then something good happened and they could support more, but only had the one spot in their uterus, so the embryo has to divide after implanting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uterus See the section on uterus types. Only some higher order primates have a simplex uterus. Humans can even sometimes have horns to their uterus...


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## Xtra (Jan 1, 2010)

We had one this year that actually grew her testicles outside of her body at about 5 months old...in a sack, like a buck but she had all her female parts. She also had very very small teats, and her vulva was small and tilted. Her testicles were smaller than a typical bucks, but nonetheless - they were there. She exhibited blubbering and buck behavior and grew freakishly large (she was butchered at 9 months old and was larger than her sire who was a year and a half when I sold him).


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## grandmajo (May 22, 2008)

I didn't know that about cows' uterus either. Makes me wonder the same thing as Vicki. Interestingly enough, we went to church with a couple who were foster parents. They were given a child who had been born with both male and female reproductive organs. The foster mom told me that the doctors had run tests and determined that the child was more male than female. So they did surgery and removed the female organs. Apparently this kind of thing happens in humans too!

I have to question though if it is as rare in goats as is stated on the internet? We know that free martins happens in cows at a fairly high percentage if they are co-twins to a male. But I think that it's been mentioned before that it really isn't well documented in goats. I wonder how many small breeders have had a doe that didn't take when bred for a couple of years, so they just sold her or gave her away? And never gave it another thought.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

The heifer calf born with a twin brother is always raised as beef. We can't afford to risk her not being fertile. Um, bovines are large grazing animals. They need a lot of pasture to eat. I will have to ask Glenn Selk about why they don't have twins as a rule. I don't know. Will wild goats have surviving sets of quads or trips? Once in a while you see twin deer, but usually one fawn.

Yes, it does happen in humans. It is rare. The freemartin is not as rare.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Around here twin deer are more common than single. I saw a doe with good sized triplets summer before last which I understand isn't terribly uncommon.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

The thing I always thought was funny, is that cows have 4 teats but usually have only one baby, whereas goats have 2 teats and usually have twins or more. I never could figure that one out!


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

:yeahthat :rofl I've wondered the same thing.

The original poster in this thread, the doe had a polled parent, but most of the ones you're all discussing came from 2 horned parents, correct?


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Up here a single fawn is unusual, its usually twins and an occasional set of trips.

The cow v goat always had me baffled too. Maybe because cattle herds are much bigger, the food supply isn't as abundant whereas goat herds tend to be smaller with a wider variety of food types? Over the course of millions of years this could play a big part.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

Oh, there is something about the polled gene. I have forgotten what it was though. Will they not reproduce? I once had a polled doe but she had a horned parent. She had one HUGE buckling I had to pull because she was not gonna get him out by herself. Then I had a horned doe which always only ever had a single. I figured she must have had a cystic or nonfunctioning ovary. Her daughters had twins. Most of my Boers had twins.

Cattle need an enormously large amount of food to grow and maintain their bodies. And, don't you think we beef producers would LOVE to have twins every calving? Double the money.

Hmm, usually see one fawn here, but I could be wrong. We see a doe with twins quite often around here. We just assumed it was the same doe. There are so many deer in this county and the other county in OK where I have spent most of my life, that the wildlife dept. introduced predators. Hunting season was not enough to thin them out. Someone gets killed within a 10 mile radius of my house almost every month of the year as result of an accident caused by a deer. That is just the fatalities, not the number of accidents. Hard Red Winter Wheat makes good forage, but the deer are stil smaller than usual. And yes, I know the guy who gave me the downlow on releasing the predators...was an employee. so insider info...shall remain nameless. this person named the 4 counties where they were originally released.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

By the way, the "doeling" as it turns out, was a hermaphrodite, so my friend told me.

The deer here usually only have 1 fawn, as far as I knew...but maybe I am not that observant. I don't really see deer all that much, and when I do, it is usually just the one without any babies. Perhaps the coyotes usually get them....yikes.

The polled gene is linked somehow with the gene for hermaphroditism. Polled is dominant, so if you have both a polled gene and a horned gene, you will still be polled. A lot of people think that if you breed two polled goats, they will always end up sterile, but they aren't always because they can still inherit the recessive horned gene. Two polled goats could even have a horned kid. I don't have any personal experience with polled goats, but that was my understanding of it. I wish I could find some though!! The other thing I have read about is that the genetically female kids are the ones that come out polled. The males still come out looking male, but can have varying degrees of sterility. I also think I read something that was saying that it isn't as simple as "two copies of polled gene=sterile/hermaphrodite". Also, ANY animal can come out a hermi, polled, horned, otherwise, it is a natural genetic mutation that happens in all species as far as I knew.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

The guy who sold me the polled doe told me that you shouldn't mate polled with polled. The son of the polled doe grew horns. He was an impressive meat animal, but I did NOT use him for breeding. Not if he was gonna throw huge kids like himself. I hung onto the doe which always kidded single. She was a gorgeous Boer with near perfect Boer markings and had beautiful, growthy kids. I did like to watch that herd of Boers with their near identicalness, grazing. The kids were so cute.

I will have to drag out my Genetics book. I don't remember there being a gene for hermaphrodism.


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