Courtship lasts for over 30 minutes, and consists of licking, ritualised postures, and flehmen if the female urinates. Males compete for dominance during the rut, rearing up on their hind legs and clashing their horns together. Gestation lasts 170 to 180 days, and usually results in the birth of a single kid, although twins occur in up to 14% of births, and triplets are born on rare occasions. Newborn kids weigh about , and grow rapidly during their first year. The horns are visible after about three to four weeks. They begin to eat grass as little as eight days after birth, but do not do so regularly until they are about one month old, and are not fully weaned until six months. Males are sexually mature at eighteen months, but do not reach their full adult size for nine years. Females first breed in their second year. Males typically live for ten years in the wild, and females for up to seventeen years. They have been reported to live for up to 22 years in captivity. Usually living at high elevations, sometimes at the vegetation line and well above the tree line, Siberian ibexes seek out lower slopes during the winter in search of food. They have also been known to seek out tree lines on hot days, but they do not enter forested areas, preferring to return to their alpine habitat when the weather has cooled. When snow is heavy, they have to paw away snow to reach the vegetation below. Their diet primarily consists of alpine grasses and herbs. During spring and summer, grasses and sedges form the bulk of their diet, while during winter they eat more tall herbs, and the twigs and needles of trees such as aspen, spruce, juniper, and willow. During the summer, they often visit salt licks. Herds vary in size depending on the local population; about 5-30 is most common, although they can become much larger during the rut. Outside of the rut, most herds are single-sex, although some mixed-sex herds persist throughout the year. Herds spend much of the day grazing, spending an hour or more at each location before moving on. The main predators of Siberian ibex are wolves, dholes, snow leopards, and brown bears; young ibex may also fall prey to lynxes, foxes, and eagles. Siberian ibexes live mostly above the tree line, in areas of steep slopes and rocky scree.