Breeding polled to polled

[Faith Foster]

I had posted an ad locally looking for does. ( Long story but mine were poisoned by a neighbor last year. Lost 8 in 1 day) The bucks survived, the does did not.

So I received a response from someone saying if I breed polled to polled I will end up.with a hermaphrodite.

I have bred polled to polled before with no issues.  

Is this true???

Thank you

[Faith Foster]

.

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

There were studies done in the 1940s through the 1960s that showed a fairly high rate of hermaphrodites when polled goats were bred to polled goats. The 1963 study, which included more than 1000 Saanens resulted in 25% intersex when a homozygous polled goat (two polled genes) was bred to a heterozygous polled goat (one polled gene), and there were 10% intersex when two heterozygous polled goats were bred to each other. I'm not aware of any homozygous polled goats in the US because of this problem, so you were probably breeding two heterozygous polled goats, which would mean a 10% chance of intersex. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes the goat looks like a female but acts very bucky and is infertile. Upon testing, you'll find that she has testicles inside her abdomen. 

There are people now who are breeding polled to polled because they really want to get homozygous polled bucks, which could only throw polled kids, but I'm not aware of anyone who has succeeded. 

Here is more info about exactly how the genetics work ...

https://thriftyhomesteader.com/genetics-polled-goats/

[Faith Foster]

Thank you Deborah. After reading the article and searching through the attachments, I think the 1 doe I was using in this instance, may have been disbudded and not polled as I had a few kids with her that had horns. The buck is definitely polled.
Thank you. I will keep this in mind while searching for my next does

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

Yeah, that sounds like what happened. I'm glad the info was helpful to you!