The present study was carried out to investigate the effects of male goat on feeding behavior of female goat in breeding season. Sixty four Markhoz female goats, 3.5 years old, two or three parity, 43±2 kg live weight, body condition score 3, along with 10 male goats were used to study the effect of male pheromones on feeding behavior. The study was down in 6 weeks. Female goats were equally divided into three treatments (a₁, a₂ and a₃) along with a control treatment (c) with 8 animals in each group. Variable factor of treatments was the distance of the male goats box (source of pheromone secretion or male effect), which was supposed to be the a₁ (0-5 meters), a₂ (10-15 meters) and a₃ (25-30 meters), respectively. The results of study showed a decrease in feed intake of the female goats due to distance from male goats (P<0.01). The amount of feed intake showed a considerable reduction when the distance of opposite sexes decreased. Among the treatments having a closer exposure to the males, feed intake decreased meaningfully probably because of the high amount of the pheromones concentration. It was concluded that the distance of female from male goats or the concentration of pheromone can significantly affect feed intake of the Markhoz female goats. Therefore the management of nutrition in order to increase livestock production and reproductive performance must be paid more attention.

Key words: Feed intake; Male effect; Markhoz goat; Pheromone