I was wondering if somebody could talk to me about how the genetics work in color inheritance. I mean, I know about dominant and recessive genes and all that, but it seems that Nigerians come in so many colors and there isn't a pattern to how they will be colored. Is that right?
For example, my Oreo is black with white freckles, much like her dam Penny. Penny's sire and grandsire were also very similarly marked, black and white spotted. Oreo's sire is chocolatey brown with white spots, and her twin sister was tri-colored buckskin - black, white, and brown. It seems from that combination that color can be passed down, or it can be like a random grab bag.
Caramel is light blond. Her sire is brown and white pinto, and her mother is solid black. Would she have gotten a color gene somewhere back from a grandparent? Or is it absolutely random - like a black doe can just have a blond kid, or a light colored doe a dark one?
I hope that doesn't sound too stupid. I'm not sure how to explain what I'm curious about. Is color something that can be passed down, and thus bred for?
It's more fun though to think of it being like a big surprise every time kids are born - no telling what color they'll be.
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Yay! Thank you for the link!
I had just wondered, because I had been doing some research for when we add new genetics to our herd, and it is interesting to compare the different types of breeding. Some are definitely bred more for colorful pets. And some are focusing on milk (obviously what we want :P ). Yet the milk ones are still colorful too.
I just posted this a couple of weeks ago:
http://nigeriandwarfgoats.ning.com/forum/topics/nd-color-genetics
It tells you everything you ever wanted to know about colors and then some!
However it is entirely possible to have a white goat have a black kid and vice versa. I have one buck who throws a ridiculous number of buckskin kids, yet he's black, his mother was chocolate, and his sire was red and white. Some years, a doe will throw kids that look like carbon copies of her and other years she'll throw kids that are all over the rainbow.
Bottom line however is that color has absolutely nothing to do with putting milk in the bucket, and when people start breeding for color (or blue eyes), the better milking genetics tend to suffer as mediocre or poor producers are not culled as they should be, simply because they're "pretty."