# Need an Outside Opinion



## Livinwright Farm (Jun 30, 2011)

When we picked up our baby herd sire, the woman gave us a "black"(looks dark brown in full sun) nigerian buckling for free to be his growing companion. This buckling has a small golden brown moonspot on his left rear leg.
What I want opinion on is this:
Should we wether this buckling, where he is unregisterable. Or should we leave him intact and let him breed our does to see if he passes on the moonspot gene/trait?


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## elevan (Jun 30, 2011)

Depends on what you're trying to accomplish in your herd?


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## Livinwright Farm (Jun 30, 2011)

We want decent(good udders & not jumpy when "violated") milking does, friendly goats all around(ones that seek out a hand to pet them), and nice colorations/patterns. Not looking for show quality per se, as we do not plan on doing the showing thing.  Basically, we are looking to improve all of the GOOD/ desirable traits and weed out the bad/ undesirable traits.


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## elevan (Jun 30, 2011)

Well...then it doesn't sound to me like it matters if they are registered or registerable...

Were you able to check out his dam's udder?  It'll say a lot for what he's gonna possibly throw.

And if he has a moonspot it's possible that he'll throw them...


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## Livinwright Farm (Jun 30, 2011)

elevan said:
			
		

> Well...then it doesn't sound to me like it matters if they are registered or registerable...
> 
> Were you able to check out his dam's udder?  It'll say a lot for what he's gonna possibly throw.
> 
> And if he has a moonspot it's possible that he'll throw them...


We got the buckling who is going to be registered(once we get the remaining info), in order to upgrade our herd's status & boost the milking side of things. It will be nice to eventually sell kids as registerable for those who want to show.

We hadn't looked at Jack's dam's udder when we got him... because he was a bonus/freebie.... but thinking back on it now, we should have checked her udder out, because we bought his sister Sheba.  If I can manage to squeeze the blood from the turnip(so to speak) and get a couple current pictures of her udder, then I will upload them here for critique-ing.


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## llrumsey (Jun 30, 2011)

Do you like the personality of the buckling?  I find that, that makes a big difference in weather or not I make a wether out of the buckling, I am into gentle loving males that throw large kids with lots of color.

I fixed one of my bucks last year and even though he has beautiful coloring I'm glad that he is a wether, I am able to keep him as a pet and enjoy him more than I can my full buck.

So it all depends on what you want out of your herd.


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## redtailgal (Jul 1, 2011)

..


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## elevan (Jul 1, 2011)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> I think you should leave him intact.
> 
> (and send him to me).
> 
> I like spots and I really really need to give up the after supper coffee.


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 1, 2011)

Here's my $.02.  If she gave him to you for free I'm guessing he wasn't worth much.  Moonspots are no reason for breeding, IMO.  If you get a great buck who happens to have moonspots, that's great. If you get a so-so buck that has a moonspot, then you should have a really nice moonspotted pet wether.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jul 1, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

> Here's my $.02.  If she gave him to you for free I'm guessing he wasn't worth much.  Moonspots are no reason for breeding, IMO.  If you get a great buck who happens to have moonspots, that's great. If you get a so-so buck that has a moonspot, then you should have a really nice moonspotted pet wether.


x2


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## jodief100 (Jul 1, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

> Here's my $.02.  If she gave him to you for free I'm guessing he wasn't worth much.  Moonspots are no reason for breeding, IMO.  If you get a great buck who happens to have moonspots, that's great. If you get a so-so buck that has a moonspot, then you should have a really nice moonspotted pet wether.


X3

In my opinion- breeding primarily or exclusivly for "decorative" traits is a bad idea.


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## elevan (Jul 1, 2011)

jodief100 said:
			
		

> aggieterpkatie said:
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x4

But do some homework before you wether him.  Call the person you got him from and see if you can get some pictures of his dam's udder, his granddam's udder on both sides too.

You said he's the brother to Sheba...at the very least you want to see those udder pics for that reason alone.


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## Livinwright Farm (Jul 1, 2011)

Okay, the reasons she threw him in was that (1) Jack was going to be sold as pet quality, since neither dam nor sire are registered (2) she asked if HighNote would have any other boys to be with once he was seperated from the girls at 7 weeks... we told her that (at the time) we had 2 almost year old bucklings that he could live with... she said, that wasn't a good idea, and that she would be willing to give us Sheba's brother Jack to be his companion because he was too old to disbud and not many people that she deals with want horns intact goats. I know that Sheba & Jack's dam is VERY friendly, and so are they.
Jack and sheba are 2 of 4. She gets most of her money from selling her registerable kids.

"Blood from a turnip" when it comes to getting her to send us things she promised us/we paid for, not to mention things we ask for...(we call her farm/house number and she never answers, always has it go to answering machine. Won't answer messages relating to HighNote's registration, etc.)  so odds of getting pics of the dam's udder aren't so good, but I *WILL* try!

Side note:
Sheba's teeth when we got her were in an indecent state of underbite... almost as if she had been nibbling on something and it got yanked out of her mouth. This has slightly corrected with the bottle feeding, but she still has a touch of it. Is there anyway to correct this for her... like goatie braces or a form of "massage therapy"???


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 1, 2011)

Livinwright Farm said:
			
		

> Side note:
> Sheba's teeth when we got her were in an indecent state of underbite... almost as if she had been nibbling on something and it got yanked out of her mouth. This has slightly corrected with the bottle feeding, but she still has a touch of it. Is there anyway to correct this for her... like goatie braces or a form of "massage therapy"???


Sounds like Sheba has a slight case of parrotmouth.


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## ksalvagno (Jul 1, 2011)

Time will tell when she loses those baby teeth and the new ones come in. Nothing you can do for current teeth


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jul 1, 2011)

Parrot mouth is an overbite rather than an underbite.  I've never heard of bite issues in kids resolving themselves over time.  I have heard of them getting worse with age.  

You mentioned that your breeding goal is to breed for the good traits and breed out the bad.  That's really the goal of every breeder in oversimplified terms.  Personally, if I had a set of twins born here and one of them had a bite defect any bucklings from that litter would be wethered.  Keep in mind that if that bite issue is genetic then you could be breeding it into your herd not only with your doe but with the buck sibling as well.  Producers tend to grant does a little more leeway when it comes to stuff like that if it's fairly minor, but I wouldn't grant that same leeway to an unregistered "pet quality" buck if your goal is to improve on your does.

If you purchased him as a registered kid why weren't the applications for registration given to you when he was picked up?


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 1, 2011)

n.smithurmond said:
			
		

> Parrot mouth is an overbite rather than an underbite.  I've never heard of bite issues in kids resolving themselves over time.  I have heard of them getting worse with age.


Where's the hand smacking forehead smiley?  I was even picturing in my mind an actual parrotmouthed kid when I was typing that, even though LW described the teeth out and said underbite.  LOL.  

My Ober buck kid this year has an underbite and he will not be allowed to keep his manparts.    When their mouth is misaligned like that there's definitely no "growing out" of it.


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## ksalvagno (Jul 1, 2011)

If the teeth just got knocked and now are growing funny, then the adult teeth that come in should be fine. But if she, in fact, has some type of over/under bite, then that won't change.


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 1, 2011)

I really doubt the teeth got knocked....


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## ksalvagno (Jul 1, 2011)

It may rarely happen but I had an alpaca that got his teeth knocked and he looked like a hillbilly until his adult teeth came in. Then he had a good bite. So while it may be rare, it is a possibility.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jul 1, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

> n.smithurmond said:
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## Goatmasta (Jul 1, 2011)

9.9999 times out of 10 when a breeder gives you a "freebie" it is not worth breeding.  And by the way you can't milk color or moonspots.  I would vote for a band with two testes hanging below.


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## Livinwright Farm (Jul 1, 2011)

n.smithurmond said:
			
		

> If you purchased him as a registered kid why weren't the applications for registration given to you when he was picked up?


She mostly filled out the information on the application, but did not have the service memo from the sire's owner, and didn't fill out the dam's registration number... or the date of birth. Thankfully, she had posted to her fb the day after he was born.  In order to get the missing information I had to contact the sire's owner and have her contact the breeder for the dam's reg.#... as the breeder wouldn't reply to any messages regarding the registerable kid(she would reply to anything else, however  ).

I am not sure that the teeth issue with Sheba is a hereditary one... as neither her sire nor her dam have an issue, and none of her 3 siblings have an issue... like I mentioned, we are fairly certain it happened by someone quickly pulling something out of her mouth... either that or she was "pulled" out by her bottom jaw.  Also, it *HAS* gotten better in the 2 weeks that we have been bottle feeding her.  Just didn't know if there was a way to help it along a little more.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jul 2, 2011)

Livinwright Farm said:
			
		

> n.smithurmond said:
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Not seeing it in her immediate pedigree shouldn't rule out a genetic cause.


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 2, 2011)

Yeah....neither my doe nor buck have any bite issues, but both kids this year had small problems with theirs.  The buck's is worse than the doe kid's luckily...hers is just barely noticeable.


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