The sexual behavior of male goats exposed to long days is as intense as during their breeding season

This study was conducted to determine if the sexual behavior displayed by photo-stimulated bucks is equivalent to that displayed during their natural breeding season. We also studied the individual variability of the sexual behavior of those males between seasons and between tests. Sixteen male goats were rendered sexually active by exposure to 2.5 months of long days from November 1 st onward. The intensity of the sexual behavior of the same bucks was tested during 3 different periods: i) during their natural breeding season, ii) about 60 days after they were submitted to the photoperiodic treatment described previously (Photo-induced sexual season) and iii) during their non-breeding season. For each phase, the sexual behavior of males was recorded on two different days by individually exposing them to an ovariectomized female for 15 min. The following sexual behaviors were recorded: ano-genital sniffing, nudging, mounting attempt, self-urination and flehmen. Males displayed higher occurrences of every component during their photo-induced sexual season in comparison to the non-breeding season (P ≤ 0.001). In contrast, the occurrences of each component of sexual behavior did not differ between the photo-induced sexual season and the natural breeding season (P ≥ 0.3). Interestingly, we found high individual variability of the sexual behavior of males between the breeding and photo-induced sexual seasons and also between tests during each season. We conclude that the photoperiodic treatment consisting of 2.5 months of artificially long days enables the induction of sexual behavior equivalent to that of the breeding season of males. Moreover, we illustrated the inter- and intra-season individual variability of the sexual behavior of male goats.