# Determining sex with "smelling their dam's heads", hate to even bring it up



## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

I remember an old thread about sniffing the top of a pregant doe's head and then determining the sex of the unborn kids by the nature of the odor. Supposedly, if the odor was that of a buck, then there would be a buck kid, or some buck kids. 

I never much paid attention to this.

However, the last several times my pregnant MiniMancha has come near me, she smells like a buck, and it is always her head, not her rear. Also, she is not penned with or near a buck or with or near any doe who has been with or near one. So no direct or indirect transfer of odor.

Because I was caught off guard by this smell and was not actively looking for it, I know odor was "real". It surprised me and then I remember the old debate. Is there anything to this?


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## LamanchaLover (Jan 11, 2010)

I don`t know anything about this, but that is interesting,
I have never even heard about that. Hope someone else
helps you out.


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## KingsCoGoatGuy (Dec 20, 2008)

I've tried it. Maybe got 50/50 on it. Our Boers worked best but then again they ALWAYS had buck kids. I've given up on smelling heads, just take what I got. Does are getting good enough that I could sell buck kids out of most of them anways.


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Aaah, the ol' 50/50!

This idea went around a few years ago and comes back now and then. Trust me, I was not an advocate. The only reason I even dared to bring it up was becasue that doe had a buck-smelling head. So I was wondering if there was actually anything to it. We learn new scientific facts everyday so I thought I would see if anyone had heard anything about this recently, or is it still just an old wives tale.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Please don't let Lacia see this  vicki


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## Faithful Crown Nubians (Dec 5, 2007)

I tried it just for the heck of it...
Orchy's head smelled REALLY bad like a buck. She had twin bucks.
Delilah's head had the odor but not bad. She had 2 does 1 buck.
Hannah's head had a very slight odor....she had triplet does.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Toggy had no buck smell... twin bucks early this AM. But that's about all we can have around here. :rofl


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2010)

ok diane, now you got me going out to the barn to smell heads and i had better not smell any buck heads.. LOL..
This is an interesting thread.. I am going to write down what I smell, i have four more to kid.. find out what happens
Barb


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> Please don't let Lacia see this  vicki


ok, I'm laughing out loud at this thread before I even saw this comment :rofl
my databases are busy :biggrin if that's what you're alluding to :lol

but fwiw, doe due any day here does not smell, but funny this came up cuz I commented yday that my extended lactation (17+months) milker's head smelled like a buck, and how could that be?! It was so noticeable I even put it in my milking notes! Now her daughter, the Drama Princess, is pregnant, due in 5-ish weeks, and they super cuddle, so I'll check her out later.


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## NWgoats (Jul 17, 2008)

I certainly hope it is not true! I have two due before end of the month and
I am smelling "buck" smell somewhere in the barn. Can't be my bucks, because
I sold them a month ago and they weren't anywhere near the doe barn anyway!
Now I have to go out and check and make sure to keep records. 
However, I am glad that I am not the only one noticing this. I thought I was
hallucinating (if you can hallucinate odors)


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

oh. no. 

I am not going out to smell heads!!!


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## mulish (Apr 26, 2009)

how can you help it, Billie? 
it's all i can do to sit here long enough to type this reply before i run out to smell heads!


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## MeadowValleyFarm (Oct 21, 2008)

It's interesting to see this, now I'm going to have to go to the pen and test this for my self.
Justin


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## LynninTX (Oct 25, 2007)

snort

It's dark... I'll try tomorrow. Martha better NOT smell.


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

lol! My bucks and does share a fence. And I have horrible seasonal allergies. 



....maybe in the morning!


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## catdance62 (Mar 2, 2009)

Just lay the goat down, and dangle a wedding ring over it's belly on a string. If it starts to swing horizontally, it's girls. If it starts to swing vertically, it's boys....
JUST KIDDING!!! LOL!!!!


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

:rofl Your all too funny. I'll probably go smell tomorrow but the bucks share one fence line so I doubt it will do any good. Tam


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## Legend Hills (May 29, 2008)

This is funny and fascinating at the same time.  

Kim


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## Lynn_Theesfeld (Feb 21, 2010)

To Funny Thanks for the laugh, I'd smell our goats heads, but there all kids so I wouldn't think it will work


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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

So silly. But I was down there and went ahead and smelled the heads of two of my does. I smelled Talia, who had due dates of 3/13 and 3/19 (two hand breedings) and Ursula (her dam) who isn't due until 4/5.
Talia's head smelled like hay. Not too surprising considering how much time she has spent with her hay buried in her hay pile. She delivered a few hours ago (grr) with two does and a buck.
Ursula didn't have much smell either, except goat. I'm hoping she'll do full triplets this year (last year the three came a bit early with one long dead). So we shall see. I suppose while I am copper bolusing in the next couple of days I can take to smelling their heads. lol
My friend has a doe due soon and she says her head smells bucky. The one that delivered triplet bucks really smelled bucky to her.


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Okay, that's freaky. I smelled all the heads this morning. Only Isabella smelled bucky. Well, so did the bucks. They share a fenceline... I scratched all over my bucks heads, and Isabella's head smelled stronger than my hands afterward. If she has twin bucks I'm going to cry! And maybe take old wives' tales a little more seriously!


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

So the whole forum is running out to the barn and sniffing goat heads. Glad I said it was the "head" of the goat.

And our local feedstore dude, before he retired, would use the pendulum method to sex rabbits. I could not believe what I saw. I wanted to go behind him and sex the rabbits after he turned his back so the rabbit customers would really know what sex they were!

As far as smell halluciantions, yes, there are such things. I have Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (as well as Bipolar disorder). One of the seizure types that I have are olfactory seizures. I will suddenly smell things that are not there and I am just convinced that I am right and the world is wrong when I smell these things. Oddly, one of the smells that people with my condition smell is a "feces" smell. Don't know why that is, but you can look it up. Anyway, maybe I am have olfactory seizures in the goat yard. a bad smell of buck not feces though. Soooo, maybe I smell bucky heads? I want a buckling out of this breeding as well as a doeling so it doesn't matter.


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## Tallabred (Jun 12, 2008)

Candy just smells like goat or hay. She has lost her ligs so we will see soon.


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

Feral Nature said:


> So the whole forum is running out to the barn and sniffing goat heads. Glad I said it was the "head" of the goat.


ROFLMAO... :rofl to the point the dog is looking at me sideways...


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

so not one person came back here and posted what they had? 

at the risk of Vicki deleting it all if I bring this thread up, :biggrin so what did those of you who did sniff-n-post-here wind up having? Much like the original poster, I have one pregant doe who's bucky smell puzzled me from out of the blue, "what/where is THAT smell coming from?!"... she's due next week now and her head reeks. Normally I'm training them to the milkstand but I just don't want to be around her! 

The other doe that kidded 3 weeks ago, smelled like hay and had twin doelings. 

How about yours?


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## deJardine (Apr 29, 2009)

Well, this made me laugh after a *HORRIBLE* evening... thank you for that. 

Its too dark out to go to the barn and I am exhausted... I will smell goat heads in the morning...


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## Bernice (Apr 2, 2009)

The girls are going to think we lost it between staring at their behinds, poking their ligs and now........sniffing their heads.......

I did read this somewhere once yrs ago, never tried it. I'll have to try it and see. 

PS: I have done the pendulum with my daughter in-law........indicated boys....and it was right on the money!


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## Twillingate Farm (Oct 26, 2007)

Ok... I wasn't going to say a thing last year since I can never seem to remember which goat smelled bucky and which one didn't. This year Kalliope was emanating that distinctly unpleasant buck smell and I made a mental notation. Well, she kidded a few days ago and it is a lovely doeling.

Panic will no longer overcome me when I imagine I smell a buck in my dairy barn. :crazy


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2010)

When this was first posted, I had three does left to kid for the season.. so I went out and sniffed and took notes.. LOL... yes our goats think we are crazy...
Number 1 doe, Slyvie... she was the only one that smelled bucky and she had twin does
Number 2 doe, Sophie... she had no smell, just hay and barn.. she gave me twin bucks
Number 3 doe, Jewel... she had no smell, she gave me one buck, two does...
there you have it...
Barb


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Well, I had several sets of buck/doe twins, a set of twin girls and triplets that were DOA. And one single buck. His mother is the only one that smelled bucky.


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

Whew! Sounds like 50/50 chance to me.... Which then begs the question, so what IS that smell???


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## feistymomma (May 20, 2009)

too funny....I will have to keep this in mind =)


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

my stinky headed one here decided to go into labor this afternoon! 

so I'll know soon enough, but even if its right in this case, from everyone's experience it clearly is only 50/50...


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I'd be willing to bet the smell has something to do with the hormones the does are awash in. I've had does have a very strong buck smell and then have a single doe kid.

But, if you feed your doe ACV, you will have doe kids! (joking........)


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

...smell has something to do with the hormones the does are awash in... very strong buck smell and then have a single doe kid. [/quote]

That's confusing. Wouldn't you think if there was a relationship, that it would be with a buck kid?


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

No, the hormones that circulate around a doe wouldn't make a difference to the sex of the kid. All males have some female hormone production and all females have some testosterone being produced in the body. None of that has anything to do with the kids sex, but it has everything to do with bringing a doe in season, keeping her pregnant, terminating the pregnancy and every other aspect of her sex related bodily functions.

Testosterone is what causes the bucks to make musk. When the estrogen production is low in a doe, the small amount of testosterone a doe produces will be able to show its effects on the body, including secretion of musk. Estrogen suppresses testosterone in a female. If you gave intact males estrogen in large enough doses, the testosterone would be suppressed in them also and the male would start developing some female characteristics and lose some the their maleness, including the musk production.


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

of course! 
but the question is what/why some smell and not others, if its not tied to the gender of the kids?

it doesn't matter, clearly its not much of a predictor.


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Different bodies react to the same things differently. A dip in estrogen in one doe may make her stink to high heaven, while the same dip in another doe may not make her smell at all.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Penny had no buck smell and kidded with 2 does and 1 buckling today.


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

I don't think there's any correlation.

Stinky-head doe here, today had triplet doelings, but 2 were born dead. Details in the "Breeds & Dates" thread at http://dairygoatinfo.com/index.php/topic,14299.0.html if you're interested.


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Well...the doe (Speckles) with the "buck-smelling head" just had 2 doelings, so go figure.


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## LMonty (Oct 25, 2007)

i wonder- there are scent glands right up along the horn buds. I wonder if soem does have more active ones then others, triggered by the pregnancy hormones. Sometimes the scent glands get destroyed with disbudding, sometimes they dont....


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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

Dost Thou Have Milk said:


> Ursula didn't have much smell either, except goat. I'm hoping she'll do full triplets this year (last year the three came a bit early with one long dead). So we shall see.


 Ursula ended up with buck/doe twins.


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## Pam V (Jan 3, 2009)

As far as smell halluciantions, yes, there are such things. I have Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (as well as Bipolar disorder). One of the seizure types that I have are olfactory seizures. I will suddenly smell things that are not there and I am just convinced that I am right and the world is wrong when I smell these things. Oddly, one of the smells that people with my condition smell is a "feces" smell. Don't know why that is, but you can look it up. 
[/quote]

....So I started to ponder this...what that would be like...(People tell me I think weirdly-shrug) 
I was thinking....different feces smells different. Then I hoped that maybe when it happens it was horse feces cause that is (to me) the least offensive. 
I probably shouldn't have shared... that but thanks for sharing your info. Its fascinating but then I can only imagine the complications that go with that.
Alright -who farted! Oh thats just me...no not me literally....


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## Laverne (Apr 4, 2010)

I had a smell hallucination. Me and hubby went to someones house and their two big dogs came bounding to the door barking and I looked through the window and a huge pot belly pig came walking into the living room and instantly I smelled pig. I said ,'phew I smell pig', My husband said he didn't smell pig. Then I tried to smell it again and couldn't. So to keep on topic, I smelled my does head and it smelled normal. But maybe it's a hallucination because I don't want to smell buck. And I don't want her to have bucks. I'll know in about a month.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

:rofl
This thread is too funny!


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

I know...that's why I really didn't want to bring the head-smelling up again. It's just so..... :crazy :laughcry :rofl


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## Pam V (Jan 3, 2009)

But not boring. That would be sad!


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

Laughter is good! :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl

in some places, they even have "Laughing Clubs"


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## Aja-Sammati (Oct 26, 2007)

Goat people crack me up! :rofl


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Yep, we are all a bit :crazy


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## NPgoats (Mar 18, 2010)

I kept avoiding this topic b/c I was trying to learn all that I could every time on got on DGI about important issues. 
BUT my cup runith over and I can't process any more at the moment. I really needed a laugh and thanks to all.... :rofl

Linda


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Just have to say.. my doe with the buck smelling head had 2 bucks. It's not so funny anymore! They're cute, but I wanted does!


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Darn Billie, I know how that goes!


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

You don't know how many times I've gone back and checked, especially the sundgau boy, just to make sure he's not really a girl!


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Oh, I do know how many times. LOL Had 9 kids last year, one was a doe.


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## deJardine (Apr 29, 2009)

I have to mention ~ I did not smell her head (per say) but while handling my doe I got a super strong buck smell whiff when working with her... to say the least the next day she had twin BUCKLINGS!

This is interesting considering my buck is on the other side of the acre pasture... and my does are moved into seperate birthing pens. Hmmm ~ I have 5 more does due and will try this on them now too!


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Feral Nature said:


> Well...the doe (Speckles) with the "buck-smelling head" just had 2 doelings, so go figure.


Well, this doe Speckles was supposed to give me a new herdsire. For the very first time I was actually going to keep a buck from my own herd. This was a MiniMancha bred to a purebred LaMancha so the kids would be heavy on LaMancha blood and from nice bloodlines and I wanted a buckling. So I "birthed" two doelings and went back in because surely there was a buckling in there! I checked one uterine horn and then the other. NOPE! No buckling hidden away in there...even with the doe having a buck-smelling head!


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