# saanen does breedin to boer buck?



## ohiogoatgirl (Jul 6, 2013)

this will be my does third breeding. I hand milk. the does are both saanen.
 first breeding they were bred to a nice big saanen buck.
second breeding I had bought a nice saanen buckling that sadly died of meningeal worm at almost 6months. then a (~3y/o) pygmy/Nigerian buck dropped into my lap for free. since he wasn't much smaller then my does and I had no other choice, he bred them and then was sold because he would not stay in the fence and almost killed himself several times per day on the tether.

they kidded in February this year. feb 12 and 14. doe 1 had quads! 2girls, 2boys. and doe 2 had twins. {first breeding doe 1 had twins, doe 2 had single, all boys}

they are still milking now but i'm going to once a day milkin (from twice per day milkin) because production has dropped and I don't use very much milk at all and i'm throwing away like 5lbs+ of cheese per week that's all moldy...

so my neighbor has a boer buck. he is the one I borrowed the saanen buck from for the first breeding. he had sold out of his dairys and gotten boers. so i'm pretty sure I will be able to borrow the buck from him.

so going along with my thoughts, and assuming I can borrow the boer buck from him....

1) what will saanen/boer cross most likely look like? 

2) what sort of dairy/meat characteristics can I expect from the kids? like I know they wont be awesome meat like boer or awesome milk like saanen. but thinking I would up the meatiness of the saanen frame and add milky genes to the boer part. so breeding the kids together would be decent meat kids but I could still get a bit of milk from them if I wanted to. I've never had boers before.

3) I think i'm milk protein intolerant (aka milk upsets my stomach, etc.. I looked into it I just haven't gotten the doctor test yet) and don't drink much milk. neither does my fianc. this year at a top of only 2gal per day with the two does, i'm drowning in milk and cheese. actually once I get pigs I would love to just make some yogurt and the rest would make butter and then the skim milk would get mostly fed to the pigs.
so what I want to do is milk in the mornings. separate the kids into a pen at night and in the morning milk the does and then put the kids back with em. I've got years and years of experience with the goats but we always separated at 3days old and milked and bottle fed from then on out, milking morning and evening. so this will be new for me. any suggestions or how any of you who do it this way would be helpful.

thanks!


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## AshleyFishy (Jul 6, 2013)

I've seen boer/saanen crosses before. Some milk pretty well some are more boerish. They are a lot like the Nubian boer crosses in milk production...so middle of the road milk production with a shorter lactation period than nubians. That is just generally speaking though as the offspring can go either way on the family tree. They can be meatier than a saanen but again not as meaty as a boer. Worth the effort though.

for color I've seen them solid off white, solid gold, gold headed and brown/red headed. The ones I've seen have mostly big droopy airplane ears, really kind of cute.


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## goatboy1973 (Oct 27, 2013)

I had a Saanen doe as my first goat and bred her to a FB registered Boer buck. The kids from this breeding were solid white with huge "airplane" ears and they were some of the fastest growing kids I have seen to date. The kids were more meaty than dairy though. They resembled a Kiko.


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## goatboy1973 (Oct 27, 2013)

I currently have a Saanen doeling whom I will breed to my Koy Ranch  Spanish buck. I do not milk my Saanen or Nubian does but use them as brush goats. Another wonderful cross that has proved good for me is a Nubian doe bred to a Spanish buck. These Spanish/ Nube kids are wonderful long bodied kids with a fair bit more of meat than the Nube. I look forward to breeding these doelings back to a Spanish buck for some 3/4 Spanish kids.


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