Doe in heat? And any goat advice you may have!

Okay, so we wanted to get some dairy goats. We decided to start with kids so we could bond and they would be trusting. Well we searched for quite some time and were only able to find one lady in the area who bred and sold Nigerian Dwarves. She only had a newborn buckling available and at this point I wanted a goat so badly that I said why not? I figured we could use him for breeding later on. Well a few days later she had twin doelings from another unrelated goat bred by a different buck. Sooooo I took both of those as well (if I had known she had another pregnant goat I would have not gotten the buckling and waited, but she didn't tell me). Any who, now they are coming to the age where I am thinking they need to be separated. But as I only have one buckling and do not plan to get anymore goats, I can't keep him alone. I was hoping maybe I could just separate them when the does come into heat. They are all almost 4 months now and I caught the buckling humping one of the does for the first time yesterday. I ran out and separated them. So does this mean she is in heat? He was only interested in one of them it seemed but she has shown no signs of being in heat (although discharge and odd behavior are the only signs I know of). I am going to keep them separated for three days to be safe but then I would like to put them back together when they are not in heat. If they are not in heat, will he still hump them? What signs can I look out for to know I need to separate them for a few days? And any advice you have in general would be awesome! I am completely new to goats so any and all advice is appreciated. Especially when it comes to breeding and kidding. Ps, I have considered making our buck a wether and using someone else's buck for my does BUT he is absolutely beautiful and I'd be sad to see that opportunity go.

Oh, also I have been able to keep an extremely close eye on them since we got them so I'm sure this was the first "incident" and he didn't make any contact really. I think he was still trying to figure out exactly how to do it lol.

Either you'll need to get the buckling his own buddy such as a wether, wether him, or find a new home for him. By the time you detect the heat, he'll have already long done the deed since he will live with them 24/7. If they start heat in the middle of the night, he'll see to them that they are bred.

Nigerian Dwarves are year round breeders. They come into heat every 18-21 days on average.

And yes, they can be successfully impregnated at this age. Too many three month old doelings have been bred at their first heat by their intrepid brothers who haven't yet been separated.

Four months is far too young for a healthy pregnancy, as the doelings are too physically immature. If bred that young, you carry a massive risk of her developing complications. Also, her body is still growing She can be stunted by diverting her valuable energy resources to the kids (she doesn't have a choice obviously) while they are in utero. Her body will likely be too small to easily pass the kids, so you'll need a great vet on speed dial, due to the high probability of a cesarean section being needed for the kids to be born.

If she was bred from this incident, a veterinarian can give you a drug called Lutalyse. It will terminate the pregnancy (best done early), and is given two times two weeks apart.

Stacykins is right. You can assume your doeling is pregnant. You need to get the buck out of there ASAP and talk to the vet about some lutalyse.

What about a buck apron? That could help

woops