# ARE MY GOATS WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE?



## TigerLilly (Aug 20, 2010)

Can those of you who are more knowledgable than I look at my goats & tell me if they are what I was told they are?


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## Calliopia (Aug 20, 2010)

First you need to set your facebook privacy settings so that everyone can view photos.


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## jas (Aug 20, 2010)

That would be a good start.


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## TigerLilly (Aug 20, 2010)

crud...thought i'd already done that...sorry!
it will be fixed momentarily.

DONE...please tell me I did it right?


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## ()relics (Aug 20, 2010)

I'd tell ya if I could see


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## TigerLilly (Aug 20, 2010)

OK...thank you all for your patience...Guess I'll have to figure out how to post the pics here....

This is Maddie, my 5 yr old, possibly prego Nigerian Dwarf? She stands at 20" measured at the shoulder.










This is Tiny Tim, ND, standing 13" at 4 1/2 months:









Buckley, ND, standing at 15" at 3 months:









Frostie, at almost 4 months, the runt of the litter of twins; Pygmy?


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## Roll farms (Aug 21, 2010)

Either it's really too early and I need more coffee, or that 1st doe doesn't have ears...?  
So she's got LaMancha in her background...possibly a 'mini mancha'.  
She also has a 'longer' face than most nigis.
The next two look like Nigis...the last looks like a pygmy.


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## helmstead (Aug 21, 2010)

I agree with Roll, except on the last one.  I think it's a Nigi, too...too narrow/lean with too refined of a head to be all Pygmy...and that color does occur in Nigis.

  I had to do a double take on the doe, too!


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## lilhill (Aug 21, 2010)

Yep, had to look two or three times at the first pics.  Where's the ears????


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## TigerLilly (Aug 21, 2010)

Sorry, ya'll...I guess I've forgotten about the ears; I see her everyday & it's normal to me by now. 
I was told that when she was younger, a dog got hold of her & her ears got so mangled that they had to be surgically removed. I have no idea what they looked like before.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I feel better knowing that the 2 bucks are right.
I had my doubts about the 1st and some about the last. But then again, I'm still new to all this.
To me, Maddie's face seemed a little on the long side as well; Frostie kind of looks like she's got a longer face than a pygmy should (but what do i know?), but then again...
In the end, it doesn't really matter to me. I just want to know, ya know?


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## Emmetts Dairy (Aug 21, 2010)

Very cute...that brown little doe is sooo pretty...love the boys markings...cute..he looks like a little calf....I thought your question was funny though..."can u look at my pics and tell me if my goats are what they should be"   I wanted to say..Yup there goats!!! LOL  

They all look beautiful...enjoy them!!!    Thanks for the chuckle!!


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## TigerLilly (Aug 21, 2010)

No, THANK YOU for the response & my own chuckle! I am surprised no one else thought of that answer. Guess it did sound kinda funny, huh?
(btw, the little brown one is a buck; the little black one and the adult are my does)


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## Emmetts Dairy (Aug 21, 2010)

Pardon...He's handsome then.... very sweet face....


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## chandasue (Aug 22, 2010)

> I was told that when she was younger, a dog got hold of her & her ears got so mangled that they had to be surgically removed. I have no idea what they looked like before.


If that's true then I'd still lean toward her being ND. Mine (registered purebred) has a long face like that too.


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## ThornyRidge (Aug 22, 2010)

Just consider them "Mutts" and love them... they are cute goats.. and leave it at that.. since you have no papers they are very much grade mixed with smidges of this and that.. mainly miniatures though nigies - where the blue eyes are coming from and pygmy maybe..enjoy em!


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## TigerLilly (Aug 22, 2010)

Thank you for your input Thorny, but "mutts" or not, papers or not, I still would like to know what I'm working with. "Mutts" or not, I would like to have a breeding plan of sorts, at some point, and having a better idea of what they may be would be a great help. In addition to the fact that I am not yet versed in being able to look at any goat & say definitively "That's a (insert breed here)."
I purposely did not get registered breeds because I wanted to make sure I could do this and enjoy it before I sunk lots of money into it. In another year or so I may lean in the registered direction and there wont be a need for a thread like this.
But until then...I do love my goats, whatever they are.


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## Ariel301 (Aug 23, 2010)

They all look like Nigerians to me. Maddie looks like a pretty nice doe in the photos, though without her hears she does look like a Mini-Mancha. She appears to have a nice flat topline and a deep body, both good things in a doe. She's worth breeding, in my opinion. I'd find a papered buck to breed her to if one is available and you want to work your way up to "better" stock, then you can register her daughters as Native on Appearance Nigerian Dwarfs with ADGA and have something a little fancier for yourself that way, or at least be able to sell them if you're not keeping the kids. It's hard to sell "mutt" kids with the price of feed the way it is, at least in my area. Buckley looks a bit overweight lol, I can see he's eating good! He looks a lot like my mini-Nubian/Alpine mutt doeling, same colors and same face. I think she looks like a mini deer.


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## lilhill (Aug 23, 2010)

Sorry, but you can't register Nigerians as anything but purebred.  Nigis can't be upgraded to Native on Appearance or Experimental or anything like that.

BTW, your goats are really cute!


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## TigerLilly (Aug 23, 2010)

Ariel--Maddie is the one I sent you the photos of not too long ago. Her face is the only thing that makes me doubt her breed. I am getting ready to post another picture of her, so I hope you can chime in on this part of it as well.
As far as being able to register anything I breed, I'm not even worried about that. When the time comes, I will purchase from registered stock. As far as 'mutts' not selling...they do just fine here, whether it is for pet, dairy or meat. We seem to have a large population of people that eat goat on a regular basis; it's all good!
Thanks for all the comments & compliments--and Buckley really isn't overweight...he just finished eating his evening meal...I had thoughts about posting the photo just because of that!


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## cmjust0 (Aug 24, 2010)

> I was told that when she was younger, a dog got hold of her & her ears got so mangled that they had to be surgically removed. I have no idea what they looked like before.


:/

I'm not buying that.  Not even a lil' bit.  When a dog gets ahold of a young goat, they don't knaw on their ears....they kill.

There's LaMancha in that goat.  I'm sure of it.  Looks part Pygmy, too...I dunno why, but she does..  And the color pattern definitely looks Boer..  Her nose looks kinda Nigi, though..

I'm gonna say she's half Nigerian Dwarf, half Pygmy, half LaMancha, and half Boer. 



Those percentages could be off, though....math was never my strongest subject.


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## TigerLilly (Aug 24, 2010)

ok, CM, now I'm just all kinds of confused...not that this is something new...that is what I was told by the person I bought her from who says that is what SHE was told by the people she bought her from.
At any rate, since this is the one with the 'issues' from one of my other threads, her fate has already been sealed. As soon as possible, after the end of October (to see whether or not she drops any kids), she is outta here.  She is turning out not to be worth the trouble...


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## cmjust0 (Aug 24, 2010)

TigerLilly said:
			
		

> ok, CM, now I'm just all kinds of confused...not that this is something new...that is what I was told by the person I bought her from who says that is what SHE was told by the people she bought her from.


If there was no such thing as a lamancha, and if lamancha's didn't have a propensity for knocking the ears off of anything they're crossed with, I'd consider it a possibility for the simple fact that I had no other explanation handy.

As it happens, though........  

I guess it's possible that her ears were surgically removed, but...well...the idea that a dog got ahold of her and the only casualty were ears is where the story starts to fall apart.

Then again, I remember reading once that the primary difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.





> At any rate, since this is the one with the 'issues' from one of my other threads, her fate has already been sealed. As soon as possible, after the end of October (to see whether or not she drops any kids), she is outta here.  She is turning out not to be worth the trouble...


Well...she is a goat.  Goats have a really bad habit of not being worth the trouble sometimes.


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## TigerLilly (Aug 25, 2010)

cmjust0 said:
			
		

> I guess it's possible that her ears were surgically removed, but...well...the idea that a dog got ahold of her and the only casualty were ears is where the story starts to fall apart.


ahhh, the pitfalls of being a newbie...that thought never crossed my mind!

so...here's another picture of her; can you tell if she's preggo. She has started filling out & her belly is hanging a _little_ lower. I know the only true test is through a blood test or sonogram, but she didn't look like this when I got her a couple months ago.


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