Doe with second teat

[SteveElms]

We have a boer goat kidded a week ago with a single doeling. I noticed tonight that above her teat is a second teat near her udder. It's very small compared to he normal teat. After seeing that, I checked our other does and found another that had the same thing. Is this genetic? Will it cause problems for the newborn? I've never seen anything like it and my first thought was cull her from the herd, but thought I should check with people who actually know about it. Thanks in advance for any help

Steve

 

[OneFineAcre]

It's pretty common in boars
It's considered a disqualifying fault for a dairy goat but not so much for boars

 

[SteveElms]

Thanks for the quick reply. We bought all of our does from the same breeder last year and the buck that wasn't related to the does. We aren't showing them but just have them for our own food supply.

 

[Latestarter]

Here's another discussion that happened a short time ago...

http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/extra-teats.32867/#post-419983

 

[SteveElms]

@Latestarter Thank you for the link. I searched the forum for a thread that dealt with this but couldn't find it. I guess I didn't use he word extra and used double instead.

The extra teat doesn't seem to be slowing the kid down. I watched her milk just now and she doesn't appear to even get her nose close to the extra one. It's towards the top of the teat next to the udder and pretty small. I don't know if I will breed he doe back this fall or not but it was reassuring to know this isn't uncommon.

 

[babsbag]

Not only is not uncommon in Boers it is almost expected. Google some images for double teats in Boers and you can see which ones are ok and which ones are disqualifying if you were showing. It sounds like yours is ok, the "fishtail" teats are the ones they disqualify. No reason not to breed her and certainly don't cull her. It is a trait found in some of the best and not frowned upon at all.