# Very tough decision to make. Don't know how.



## terrilhb (Jun 19, 2012)

I have 2 bucks. They are brothers. I don't know if they are full blooded or not. I have 2 does that are not related. I have kept the does doelings to breed with the other buck. I thought this was ok. But I was told the other night that this is not possible because it is the same blood line. I had really thought breeding the does to the uncle was different than the dad. So I have to decide which buck to sell. I have had them for 2 years. I really love them both. I don't know who I should sell. There are qualities about both of them that I love. I am so sad about it. I have no idea how to make it. I know noone out there can make it for me just thought maybe someone could tell me something. I think I am grasping for straws. It makes me cry.


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## marlowmanor (Jun 19, 2012)

I think it is a different thing. I think I would do the breeding as you plan to the uncle. I know I've heard it say that if it works out right it is linebreeding, ifnot it's inbreeding. There are people that breed fathers to daughters I believe and have had good results. The experts will weigh in hopefully soon.


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## SheepGirl (Jun 19, 2012)

If it were me, I would breed them together, even if they are related.


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## Roll farms (Jun 19, 2012)

You're allright.  I wouldn't go breeding that NEXT generation back to either one, but this time you're fine.


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

You have to be very careful with "line-breeding" and "in-breeding". There is a fine line between them. You HAVE to know what you're doing when it comes to "line-breeding".  If you do do this and continue to do this then you will have issues with the kids and possibly the grown bucks too. I personally think it is a bad idea to breed the does to their uncle. If you breed the doe(s) to their sire's brother then it is the same thing as breeding them to their sire because they have the same genetics.

I would not breed any goat within 4 generations of each other. Inbreeding can destroy a line and produce bad goats which in turn will destroy other lines of goats.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 19, 2012)

do the brothers have the exact same dam and sire?  Or just from the same sire?  Or just the same dam, but different sire?


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## terrilhb (Jun 19, 2012)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> do the brothers have the exact same dam and sire?  Or just from the same sire?  Or just the same dam, but different sire?


I am not sure. When we 1st got them the woman said they were twins. But they are different sizes. (knowing what little I know now the woman did not know alot about goats) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 These are the 2 bucks I am talking about. The front one is Tack he is about 175 pounds. The one in the back is his brother Charlie. He is 125 pounds. Tack is large and Charlie is smaller, more compacted. He actually looks like a minature of his brother. Thank you everyone. It is amazing how much you can love a goat.


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

If they were twins then I take it the were in the same litter. I think it is a bad idea to breed the uncle to the does. That being said, why not keep them both? I know you love them both so much so why not just keep him? It might cost some money to have to care for him and feed him, but...


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 19, 2012)

What is your hopes or plans for the offspring?


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## terrilhb (Jun 19, 2012)

That is a very good question.Would love to improve the milking. Both does do great giving milk. Great moms and the bucks I breed to my does the babies are to me anyway fantastic. Friendly, loving. I think they are gorgeous.


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## Roll farms (Jun 19, 2012)

Your does came from wayyyy different genetics than your boys, from what you've said in the past.  Nowhere near related to the bucks....correct?

They (does) are your 1st 'outcross'.  The offspring from Buck A and those does can be bred back to Buck B, (line breeding) even though he's related (could technically even be bred back to their sire).

Just don't rebreed that offspring back to either buck or siblings- do a complete unrelated outcross.

You're not really breeding for any reason but to please yourself, correct...?  Do what pleases you!  
I seriously doubt you'll have any issues at all, you'll get 'use' from both boys (and justify keeping them), and you'll have kids you like.

SH Kikos, I know you're fairly new to breeding, and are trying to be helpful....but consider this...the kikos are inbred like crazy.  A bunch of feral goats in New Zealand breeding whoever they chose for years.  They (humans) took the best of the best of those, LINE BRED THEM to produce 'type', and 'created' the breed.

Dairy goats are bred back sire / dau or dam / son all the time to produce better udders and conformation.  There's even a 'percentage inbreeding' calculator at the ADGA website.

I've been breeding sire to daughters and 1/2 uncles / aunts (when looking to repeat a trait or color I want) for a long time, with no problems.


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## Goatherd (Jun 19, 2012)

Since you have sentimental feelings for both goats, why not keep the goat that you want to use as your breeding buck and wether the other.  If you're keeping the buck, he will need a companion buddy and the perfect one would be the other buck he is living with now.  Problem solved.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 19, 2012)

terrilhb said:
			
		

> That is a very good question.Would love to improve the milking. Both does do great giving milk. Great moms and the bucks I breed to my does the babies are to me anyway fantastic. Friendly, loving. I think they are gorgeous.


I meant, do you want to keep some of the offspring(probably doelings) from this next breeding (the new doelings and the uncle)

Would you consider selling all offspring for a year or two from the above mentioned breedings and only keeping doelings from you older stock for know.  That would give you a couple more years. And since your goats aren't registered It doesn't really seem like it would matter if they are inbred one time. 

If you keep the offspring from the inbred breedings, then you will have to get another buck in a year to 18 months anyway to breed those next doelings, so your problem isn't really fixed long term. 

Or, find someone else to breed your doelings that aren't related to the uncle, then keep the doelings from that breeding and breed them back to the uncle, the relationship would be a little more distant with one more generation bred into them with outside blood. 

I think you have some options to buy yourself some time with this buck.  

But eventually all of us face this same problem, hard to just keep that same bucks. Can't keep buying new bucks and keeping the old bucks. Most of us run out of room or that just puts a burden on feed costs.  The longes we have ever own the same buck is 4 years. Most the time we only keep them two years.


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

Goatherd said:
			
		

> Since you have sentimental feelings for both goats, why not keep the goat that you want to use as your breeding buck and wether the other.  If you're keeping the buck, he will need a companion buddy and the perfect one would be the other buck he is living with now.  Problem solved.


I agree!!


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> Your does came from wayyyy different genetics than your boys, from what you've said in the past.  Nowhere near related to the bucks....correct?
> 
> They (does) are your 1st 'outcross'.  The offspring from Buck A and those does can be bred back to Buck B, (line breeding) even though he's related (could technically even be bred back to their sire).
> 
> ...


Kikos are not overbred. Sure there was "line-breeding" but the Kiko became a breed by breeding the best of many different breeds of goats. They took feral stock and crossed them with many other breeds to try and create a large meat goat without health issues. The Kiko was created from many breeds of goats and when you are crossing lots of goats it is kind of hard to line-breed them. If you go and talk to anybody that knows or has Kikos will tell you that their goats are NOT inbred. Percentage Kikos are huge right now. Everybody is breeding percentages because it improves you goat's genetics by bringing in traits from different goats and different breeds of goats. After a few generations you bring the percentage Kikos back to Purebred status. So I would argue that the Kiko breed is one, if not the least inbred breed of goat. 

Also Boer goats are the most overbred goats in the world. A big reason Boers suffer from parasites like they do is from the inbreeding from the original stock that came over. The US got Boers from Canada after they were brought there from, among other places, South Africa.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 19, 2012)

Straw Hat Kikos said:
			
		

> Roll farms said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am not sure about inbreeding or not between kiko's or boer, but the reason boer goats aren't parasite resistant is because they are a show goat and too many people are raising them in none pasture situations, So they aren't selecting for parasite resistance. They have a ton of money into them, and are more willing to just keep worming that particular blood-line rather than culling it.


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

I do completely agree with you there. You make an excellent point. Another part is that so many people have them in cool and wet climates which is not ideal, because they're from South Africa. There are many factors that contribute to their lack of hardiness but a large part is the over-breeding when they were first brought in the the US.

I do want to say that I know that there are lines of Boers that are hardy and parasite resistant so I do not want to offend anyone with Boers. Also there are many Boers that thrive out west, especially in Texas, due to the dry climate.


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## Roll farms (Jun 19, 2012)

I never said Kikos are overbred.

I got my Kikos from Troy Lohman, one of the original Kiko importers.  I have a fair share of Kiko knowledge myself.   I had a son of Loverboy (Sunboy 117)

And, I know a fair share about goats - and genetics / breeding for that matter, from actual experience, not just what I've read.  I've probably had more Kiko and % kiko kids born here than you could shake a stick at.
Not to mention line bred kids of nearly every other common breed, aside from Alpines and Nigis....for 15 years.  Toggs, Boers, Nubs, Kikos, Pygmies, and Oberhasli.

I've agreed w/ you in the past that boers are weak because weak genetics have been used...not just inbred, but outcrosses as well.  
I'm breeding HARDY back into boers.  Because I know what I'm doing....experience will do that for you.

I promise you there's some linebreeding way back in Kiko bloodlines.  
I guarantee you folks were line breeding on Keeper and his fellow original imports....otherwise, there wouldn't have been any other goats to breed them to....the gene pool was pretty small in the 1st several import groups.

But thanks for the 'education'.  Back on topic....

The point is, the OP is perfectly safe to breed her does to their uncle if she wants to, since the dams are a complete outcross.


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## currycomb (Jun 19, 2012)

wellllll, we used to raise registered, purebred nubians when daughter was in 4-H. we had planned on using our new buck to cross on some doelings, but papa buck had other ideas. he must have jumped a 5 ft fence, and bred his own daughters. the resulting kids were really awsome, had the best qualities of both parents. with that said, it could have turned out totally different, they could have gotten the worst traits of both parents. we made sure the old buck could not get near the next generation. 
so, you can use your uncle buck this time, but must decide what to do with the boys next year. if you like them both so well, make wethers out of them, you have pets you like and no accidental breedings later on


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## Straw Hat Kikos (Jun 19, 2012)

@ Roll farms

And I never said that there wasn't line-breeding in Kikos.

You can have your opinion on "line-breeding" and "inbreeding" and I can have mine. You are for it, while I am very opposed to it. I think that breeding anything related within four generations is just a bad idea and you are asking for trouble. If you don't agree that's fine. btw taking shots isn't going to do anything. It's pretty immature, in my opinoin.


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## boykin2010 (Jun 19, 2012)

I don't own goats just sheep so feel free to overlook my comment.  I just wanted to say from what I read it seems like you will be fine breeding the does to their uncle. People do it all the time to improve on genetics plus goats did it in the wild for thousands of years. Since your goats are not registered and they are purely your pets I say go for it. If your goats were registered then I would say no to the breeding because I think it would look bad on their family tree. 

They are your pets and there is probably less than a 99.9 percent chance you will have problems.  I bought 2 ewes a month or so ago and just figured out they are related! No one would've thought it because they are both from two different farms.  One was from north Dakota and the other was from Arkansas. They are not closely related but they had some same grandparents. It just goes to show you really never know who is related to who.  As long as it isn't very closely like father to daughters for multiple generations you will be fine.  

Just my 2-cents


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## Renegade (Jun 19, 2012)

Straw Hat Kikos said:
			
		

> I think that breeding anything related within four generations is just a bad idea and you are asking for trouble.


I totally disagree with this statement. By taking this approach you will never really improve your herd. You are essentially doing an outcross with every breeding you do. You will never know where your faults are coming from. Just as many (if not more) faults come from ancestors as parents. Both linebreeding and an occasional inbreeding will show you both the good and bad in your breeding program. You can then use an outcross. If all you do is outcross it's like throwing darts at a board with your back turned. You hope you hit on something good but you're just flying blind.
Goat meat is in high demand. Any animal that shows major faults can go straight into the food chain.
Now I'm not saying I agree with what this person wants to do with these two individuals. I would probably pick the best one and wether the other. That way they can keep each other company.

JMHO

Donna Finley
Finley Boers


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## terrilhb (Jun 19, 2012)

I want to thank you all for your help. I appreciate it more than you know. I am sorry that my question is starting an argument. I will be having it deleted. Everyone here is to nice and helpful for this to happen. This was not my intent. Thank you all.


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## DuckLady (Jun 19, 2012)

Closed at OP's request.

Thank you for your participation.


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