Change in behavior, your thoughts?

[rabernet]

Thanks all for advice. It's my first year breeding, and I'm still learning about time scales and such. But what do you mean keep pairing every few weeks? I was under the impression that I should pair them continuously, giving them a few days together, few days break/feed, and so on.

She is 1400+, although at the moment more like 1400; she lost around 35g or so over 3 months of fasting. I was planning to wait until normal breeding time in the fall, but I felt she was fasting because she was "in the mood" since none of her husbandry had changed. So I started pairing her with my YB male. While I hadn't directly observed a lock, there was definitely courting going on, and they may have locked over a day that I went away and left them together.

Even once every two weeks could be argued to be too often by some breeders (ie, there's really no benefit to doing it more often), but for someone new, once every two weeks for 3 days, or until after copulation is completed (but no longer than 3 days together - if they don't lock in 3 days, probably not interested at that time), gives them both a nice rest period.