Just starting out with goats, but wanting to breed and show at as high a level as I can achieve, so I'm cramming.
I've learned that blue eyes, polled, and wattles are dominant traits in all goats. Some breeds have dominant colour and pattern traits, but NDG do not. Or do they?
I am interested to know all the dominant traits in goats (internet search not much help), but specifically, if anyone has had experience with or knowledge of dominant colour/patterns in NDG.
Thanks!
Replies
I thinks sometimes we throw around the word "dominant" in a non-technical way when we really mean that something is pervasive ... like buckskin or white. It seems like you get those two a lot if they happen to be in a goat's genes. However, a dominant trait is actually one that will be expressed if a goat has it. Recessive is a gene that a goat may have, even though you don't see it.
Blue eyes and polled are dominant genes because if a goat has one of those genes, it will be expressed. In other words, if a goat has a blue-eyed gene, it will be blue eyed. So, if you ever see an ad for a brown-eyed goat that "carries blue eyes," that person is either misinformed or dishonest. Blue eyes are dominant over brown eyes. The polled gene is dominant over the horned gene.
The reason you don't get 100% blue eyes or polled is because each parent contributes a gene. A blue-eyed goat has a gene for blue eyes and a gene for brown eyes if it had a blue-eyed and a brown-eyed parent. If it is bred to a brown-eyed goat, that goat has two genes for brown eyes, so with each parent contributing one gene, the brown-eyed goat can only contribute a brown-eyed gene, and the blue-eyed goat has a 50/50 chance of contributing a blue or brown gene because it has one of each, so you have a 50% chance of blue eyes.
It is possible to have a blue-eyed goat with two blue-eyed genes IF it had two blue-eyed parents AND IF it got the blue-eyed gene from each parent. In that case, it can only throw blue-eyed kids, but if bred to a brown-eyed goat, the kids would still have one blue and one brown gene. You don't know if you have a homozygous blue-eyed goat, however, until it has thrown ten blue-eyed kids.
As for colors, I mostly ignore them because they give you nothing in the milk bucket or the show ring, and I like them all. However, off the top of my head, I can tell you that I have a black buck that came from a chocolate dam and a red sire, and he throws a lot of buckskins, so it's probably recessive, but the whole dominant/recessive thing can get complicated once you get beyond the "simple" traits.
Me too, Rachel! Plus, I would have assumed that if it was dominant you would not have to have a blue eyed parent in order to get blue eyes as long as a parent at least carried the gene! I just don't get it.
It is recessive in people and yet we have a blue eyed son. And no, we are both dark! Go figure! Thought dominate meant the color dominated others if it was in the genes! Well it is in the genes of dark eyed adults but doesn't pass on to the kids. That will just never make sense to me!
Deb and others have tried to explain this on here,but I guess I just have a lock on this subject!
I guess the reason I assumed they weren't dominant, is because breeding polled or blue eyed parents (if only one of them is) will not guarantee polled/blue eyed kids.
Actually Rachel, the blue eyes are considered dominant and I still do not understand it to save my life! It seems to me that, that goes against everything I have ever heard! Which means Nina that you really want to understand how it works with them because it may surprise you!
I don't know about the wattles or polled! Don't have them either! I have never heard anything on the color but I do suspect that solids and buckskins may be a little dominant!
Anxious to see what else is said on this!
I didn't think polled and blue eyes were dominant? Don't know about wattles... I have a black goat with white spots, whose mother is 100% white, and whose father is 100% black. lol I don't have a clue what that means, but in NDG there are not requirements for markings. Maybe that is due to the unpredictability of markings? (which would lead me to think it might be a non dominant trait)