Breed Question

[CountryMommy]

Our family recently was given this little girl, but I am afraid I know very little about goats and apparantly the person eager to find this little one a home was even less knowledgeable, considering when I went to pick it up I thought I was getting a boy...


I am wondering if anyone can tell me what kind of goat this "might" be, and how would I be able to find out/tell how old she is. We know she is a she... and that is about all we know at this point.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[ksalvagno]

I suppose you have no idea on age or anything? How big is she? I think you can tell age by their teeth but I couldn't tell you how. I"m sure someone else on here will chime in.

 

[CountryMommy]

We were finally able to connect with her original owner and found out she is a two year old pygmy. She is registered, but the previous owner doesn't have any papers, which we really don't care about. We originally wanted goats for milking, but Daisy has become such a sweetheart in the week we have had her that we really don't want to part with her. My question is... can we still breed her with a Nubian and would that give us a good milker? And would she be okay with other goats because of her horns? I wish she had been dehorned as a baby, but there isn't anything we can do about that now.

Thank you for all the advice I have found on the forums here!

 

[ksalvagno]

She should be ok with the other goats. If you need to, you can put tennis balls at the ends of her horns. Put liquid nails inside the tennis balls and then tape them on to hold them. since she is small, I would find the small tennis balls to do that though. I found small tennis balls at Dollar General.

Do not breed her to a Nubian. If she was the Nubian and the male was the Pygmy, that would be fine. Maybe you can find another Pygmy farm that would let you breed your girl to one of their males. You always want the female to be the larger breed if you are breeding a large goat with a small goat. The size of the kid could be a problem if you do it the other way around.

 

[dkluzier]

A pygmy/nubian offspring is a kinder goat, which is a dual purpose milk/meat breed. If the buck's mother was a good milker you may get an offspsring with potential. We get a gallon from our kinder nanny. My avatar is a kinder, she has horns and she is the "Queen" of our herd even though she is not the largest doe.

Check out the kinder goat breeders association for tips on breeding the two.

www.kindergoatbreeders.com

It's best to breed a Nubian DOE to a Pygmy BUCK since the nubian kid may be difficult for a pygmy doe to birth. I do not have any experience in that side of the kinder breeding.

Kinderkorner (another member) may have more info.

 

[dkluzier]

PS



She is a cutie!!!

 

[Roll farms]

I've helped a couple folks trying to get standard-sized-sired kids out of pygmy does.
It didn't end well either time....pygmy does don't always have an easy time because of their size, breeding them to a bigger boy can make that worse.