I saw the following in the latest(Feb 19)Newsweek magazine: "There's a veritable ark full of animals who exhibit homosexual behavior, says Frankenhuis, adding that young male goats, when expelled from their family at maturity, will start to mate with each other. This is when there are no females available."

This is news to me! First, my goats don't expel the males when they reach sexual maturity(at two months and up). The young males do spar with one another for dominance, but their mothers will keep nursing them for at least six months if you let them. Even after weaning, the bucks sleep next to their mothers. What kind of a family is there for them to be expelled from if there are no females? After all, goats are matriarchal. Secondly, I've never seen male goats actually mate with one another, even when deprived of females in the height of breeding season. Instead, they all line up and look longingly at the does through the fence. Of course, young goats,as well as adults, mount each other to demonstrate dominance, but mounting and mating are two entirely different matters. I think it is a little far fetched to call that mating.

So, against my better judgement, I wanted to ask whether anyone else has seen such behavior. I don't mean this as a gay bashing post or anything like that. I just have not seen this behavior and frankly, I don't think the writer of the article knows what he's talking about.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 18, 2001

Answers

What we call homosexuality is very common in the critter world.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), February 18, 2001.

I've seen mounting in almost every species I can think of, but not actual mating. I agree with you that the writer can't distinguish the difference. Although I have to say I don't know if it's all dominance or just actual sex drive that causes the mounting. Many females mount when one goes into heat, so it seems it might be more than just dominance...I don't know. As far as the animals being homosexuals, that seems a bit ridiculous based on the aspect of them being removed from the other species. If they were homosexual they would prefer to engage in sex with the same sex even if the other sex were available.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), February 18, 2001.

Hi Rebekah,

It appears his information is a little lacking in some of the fact. Bucks will continue to nurse on their dams when given the opportunity. However, reagarding the male "behavoir"...... I have seen our bucks jump on each other for male dominance, but that is so different from actual mating. And I have also seen this in our male stray dog "Pup-Pup," who did mate with another male. We attributed this to his "identity" crisis. Then we found that in the dog world that this is also for dominance. It sounds as though this author was taking a behavior and using it to substantiate his point, whatever it may be, and didn't have his facts entirely correct.

I get so disgusted when I see articles on goats or questions in my student's workbooks and the facts are wong. For example; in one elementary workbook there was a matching question about goats and the answer was this animal eats trash and showed the goat eating out of a trash can, and guess what was in the mouth? A tin can! I wrote the publisher but to date have not received a response and that was 4 months ago. alas...... there is so much stigmatism and myths out there about goats that need to be disspelled.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), February 18, 2001.

Calves will start riding each other from a very young age. I had one young bull who I, to this day, swear was gay. He showed no interest in the cows, but whenever the bull put his head down to graze, bam. Normally in dominance games the penis is not run out. With him it was out all the way. I'm told at one time it was fashionable amoung the gays in Greenwich Village to have gay dogs.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 18, 2001.

"being removed from the other species"...what I MEANT to say was other sex of their same species....sorry. I need coffee...

Ken, what happened to the "gay" bull?

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), February 18, 2001.

What you are describing is common in the animal world (how many have NOT had a puppy mount their leg?). Some researchers surmise that this behavior is no more "homosexual" in animal species than self exploration and self gratification in pre adolescent humans. While deer hunting, I have noticed young bucks mounting each other and performing self gratification also. The later are actually easier targets as they are oblivious to their surroundings.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), February 18, 2001.

Doreen:

He went to the livestock auction. He wasn't doing any good with the cows and was just annoying the herd bull.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 18, 2001.

Though our bucks get along fine amongst themselves during rut, bring in a younger buck or god forbid a wether (castrated male), and they do not "just" mount the others. Though I have never seen anal penetration, but just like all things to new folks, I also haven't a clue how many times a day my kids poop (a question I was just asked :). But I have seen a 5 year old buck mount and ejaculate under the leg of a yearling buck. When you can get a buck to ejaculate with just a rag wiped over a does hinney that is in heat (for AI) , I certainly think another buck or his mouth isn't that far off. In another kind of thinking the bible talks about sodomy, look this up in the dictionary and you will find this to be all forms of anal and oral sex, not just homosexual behavior. So before this thread turns into "God says homosexuals are damned to hell", this is part of a normal loving heterosexual union also.

We also had a rooster who would do the ducks, and our bucks thought nothing of mating the sheep. In fact I had a young bull come after me when I was younger, and thank god sprier and was able to climb a tree! You simply can't put animal behavior into neat little "labels", like folks want to do with us humans. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 18, 2001.

I used to raise Spot and Chester White hogs. We sold feeder pigs and brood stock. I had 5 Spot boars for the summer show season several years ago. One particular boar was the object of affection for the other 4. All four would mount, penetrate and ejactulate. They were all sold to different breeders at the end of summer. Got a call in the spring from the buyer of the recipient boar. He had been placed with 20 gilts and NONE of them were bred over a four month period. We refunded the purchase price, replaced the boar, and thru in 2 champion bred sows. Brought the boar home, exposed him to a couple of sows and got nothing. Had him tested for diseases, negative. Sausage. We had joked all season that he was gay. Kinda of humilating when they were all penned together at shows and he had semen ooozing from him all of the time. We had many hogs over the years, sold about 1,000 feeders a year, and never saw this happen before or since.

-- Terri Perry (teperry@stargate.net), February 18, 2001.