Fig 1. Minimum and maximum THI values throughout the experiment.

The vertical shaded strip indicates when goats were in 2 climatic chambers under thermal-neutral (TN) and heat stress (HS) conditions. Afterwards, both goat groups were moved to the barn under semi-extensitve conditions. Levels of heat stress (alert, danger, and extreme) are indicated by the horizontal shaded strips according to Silanikove and Koluman [20]. For the first 6 weeks of pregnancy, HS-goats were in the danger level only during the day time and decended to the normal level during night. When goats were moved to the barn the maximum THI values were in the upper part of the normal level. The THI values were calculated using temperature and humidity data recorded by the data loger when goats were in the climatic chambers, and by the data provided by the closest meteorological ststion when they were in the barn.