Herdsire Qualifications - DNA testing

[OneFineAcre]

I think too many bucks are left intact and sold as herdsires. We have been guilty of that ourselves.
So, I can tell you what our plan is for next year.
We are only going to offer bucks out of Zamia, Clarabelle, Rosemary, and Taffy. All appraised over 90 with E on udder. Zamia and Clarabelle have the SGCH (superior genetics) designation and Rosemary and Taffy have the GCH. All have milk stars. Probably not going to keep bucks out of Cocoa since she didn't get E on udder.
And one other thing, I think that if Taffy and Rosie's aren't sold by the time they are 10 weeks old we will go ahead and wether them.

That's kind of where we are trying to get with our herdsires. Zeus, Jupiter, Valiant, and Vivald all of their dams are SGCH. Big Brown's dam is GCH with 90 and E on udder. Rocky will be the only one that doesn't meet that criteria, but he isn't going anywhere.
I like the numbers. Avoids "barn goggles"

I saw something that someone wrote on this with a flow chart on a facebook page but I can't find it.

 

[Green Acres Farm]

I'm getting to the point now where I know what I like and what I don't. There are certain lines that get a ton of attention, but I wouldn't want a herd sire from them.

Often, I see goats with 'E' udders I wouldn't give an 'E', and others with 'V' udders that look better than a lot of 'E's. So I wouldn't personally wether or not wether because of someone else's opinion through an LA score on my goat.

 

[Hens and Roos]

For us the 2018 kidding will hopefully show us if we made any improvements from our original does- Coco, Maggie and Obie with our buck Chester.

 

[rosti]

I've only sold a few intact bucks, and have only retained one, which was this year, since we first started breeding in 2011. First, I need to need another buck, and he must be able to cross with a few of my does. (For example, the one I kept was an AI kid so I could use different genetics, though he's still related to a few of our does.)
Obviously, his dam and sire must be "made of the stuff I like" and come from high producing lines, with no background of genetic problems/diseases.
It's hard to list it all, really, because I might choose a buck that may be lacking in one area but will greatly improve our lines in another area. No goat is perfect and you kind gotta lean the teeter-totter back and forth without going to far either way.
More related to buying than retaining, but one thing I don't go by when choosing any goat is show wins. So what if they won every class at the fair for years in a row if the competition was lousy and classes were small.

 

[OneFineAcre]

I've only sold a few intact bucks, and have only retained one, which was this year, since we first started breeding in 2011. First, I need to need another buck, and he must be able to cross with a few of my does. (For example, the one I kept was an AI kid so I could use different genetics, though he's still related to a few of our does.)
Obviously, his dam and sire must be "made of the stuff I like" and come from high producing lines, with no background of genetic problems/diseases.
It's hard to list it all, really, because I might choose a buck that may be lacking in one area but will greatly improve our lines in another area. No goat is perfect and you kind gotta lean the teeter-totter back and forth without going to far either way.
More related to buying than retaining, but one thing I don't go by when choosing any goat is show wins. So what if they won every class at the fair for years in a row if the competition was lousy and classes were small.

Agree with most of what you say
And you are right about show records in shows with lousy competition
But if a doe has been best of breed 9 times or a doe has been a grand champion multiple times in a show with 80 milkers then chances are all of the other parts are there too

 

[OneFineAcre]

I'm getting to the point now where I know what I like and what I don't. There are certain lines that get a ton of attention, but I wouldn't want a herd sire from them.

Often, I see goats with 'E' udders I wouldn't give an 'E', and others with 'V' udders that look better than a lot of 'E's. So I wouldn't personally wether or not wether because of someone else's opinion through an LA score on my goat.

We have had 3 Linear Appraisals and every one confirmed what we already thought about our animals
The ones we thought were excellent were excellent on appraisal
The ones we thought were very good were very good on their appraisal
In fact if we listed our goats in order from top to bottom on appraisal score I would place them in the same order.
Cocoa got V on udder and her udder is a V

We have learned so much from participating in LA its unbelievable
We were a host herd this year
I got to watch 2 other herds be appraised before mine and heard their questions and the answers
You can ask questions
They explain
There is no better tool for evaluating your animals
We have sold animals and are selling animals based in their appraisal
Not necessarily based on their total score but something the appraiser pointed out
Do you know what a tilted chest wall is ?
A linear appraiser can tell you what it is
Or is your animal narrower at the pins than the hocks
They will point that out with no barn goggles

 

[rosti]

[QUOTE="OneFineAcre,
But if a doe has been best of breed 9 times or a doe has been a grand champion multiple times in a show with 80 milkers then chances are all of the other parts are there too[/QUOTE]

True. And if a doe wins at the Nationals, or even places high in her class, I will look into her more. It's just so often I see ads or on breeders' websites that the animal has been BIS or BOB x amount of times, but no indication of where that was and the amount/quality of competition.

 

[Bayleaf Meadows]

I've only been to one appraisal. I didn't have any goats there, but I got a lot out of watching the process. And I could tell that what the appraisers were saying really opened the eyes of the owners about what to look for and what to avoid. I certainly was looking at some traits the wrong way and will be better able to choose a goat in the future. Show performance can vary from one judge or group of goats to another, but consistent placement is significant. What I like best is adding milk test to the mix and voila- a detailed picture of the dairy performance.

 

[Southern by choice]

IMO LA is a good tool.... but again it was taken from the dairy cow industry and modified for the goats and again just like all things... people have determine what is perfection and what is not.
The other critical things are not measured by LA, Milktest, or show wins.... that is hardiness, parasite resistance, kidding ease, ability to live and thrive as a goat and longevity.
Nigerians are the hardiest of all breeds hands down, so this may not apply so much to them but I can say the more fru fru the goat it seems those other categories are very important.

 

[OneFineAcre]

You can't independently, quantifiably evaluate parasite resistance, hardiness, kidding ease
You can only go by what the person selling the goat says
And you run into the whole " barn goggle" issue