Questions about how to breed my ND's

[AlaskanShepherdess]

When I bought my ND's I was very excited as I emailed the breeder regarding their pedigree and read her website it appeared that 5 of the ND's I had bought were out of some of Alaska's best lines. Well after talking to other local goat owners and learning more about dairy conformation, I'm finding that probably the only thing that two of them may have going for them is how much milk they will produce. 2 does, and my now only buck come from lines that have high milk production, but bad dairy characteristics. They are built more like meat goats then dairy goats!

I highly doubt I will show my animals, but I want to breed responsibly and improve on what I have. I do know that owners that I sell kids to may want to show them so I am in a quandry of sorts, as my current thoughts are to breed my buck and two "meaty" does for milk and meat production, while buck servicing for breeding the others for dairy and milk production. But will breeding a "seperate line" for milk and meat production be irrisponsible breeding, since it's really not improving the breed?

 

[ksalvagno]

It really depends on what you are going for. If you are going for show animals, then you wouldn't want them to look meaty and would want conformation that they are looking for in the show ring. If you want goats for meat, then it would be fine. I guess all you can do is work with what you have now and then work towards selling what isn't good conformation and bringing in new goats that do have proper conformation. Your just starting out and learning. So take this as a good learning experience and go from there.

 

[lilhill]

It really depends on what you are going for. If you are going for show animals, then you wouldn't want them to look meaty and would want conformation that they are looking for in the show ring. If you want goats for meat, then it would be fine. I guess all you can do is work with what you have now and then work towards selling what isn't good conformation and bringing in new goats that do have proper conformation. Your just starting out and learning. So take this as a good learning experience and go from there.

When starting out, we all make choices and find out later that maybe they weren't all what we expected. That's okay because that's how we learn. Welcome to the wonderful world of Nigerian Dwarf goats!

 

[chandasue]

Are they really meaty or just "well conditioned", in other words--fat? Personally I'd work with what you've got for the time being and see how it goes. If you find that your market demands more of a dairy looking goat then get a more dairy buck to breed to your does in a couple years. If you find you're marketing to home milkers then your not out anything. In our area (central MN) the babies are getting harder to sell (and prices seem to be dropping) since the market is becoming saturated with them. I personally wish the breed was meatier to diversify their marketing, but alas, the world does not revolve around me.