We need advice....
We have a single doe, Chloe. She is now just a year old. She is the only adult ND doe in Australia, so we have nothing with which to compare.
We are worried she is overweight.
She is 19 1/4 inches at withers, and she weighs between 55 and 60 lbs.
She only gets fed hay (clover-rye hay and no grain) and, of course her minerals and kelp. She does get to browse a bit in the 1/4 acre of garden several times a day and will take the odd weed, bunch if grass, or leaves of a bush (rose bushes, acacia, banksia, or eucalyptus trees, but NOT the precious avacado tree). She does not get lots of exercise because there are no big paddocks to roam at this point.
This video clip was filmed this week and shows her eating eucalyptus leaves, with her two wether companions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJJlA3Uhp7U
In addition, I am including two photos of her tail which I took last night. I can feel the bones in the tail, but certainly cannot see them. I can feel the the top of the spine without much effort, though it is padded, rather like running one's finger over the back of the hand (not the fingers). I can feel the horizontal processes of the spine between the hips and ribs, but not readily. There is a good layer of..., fat? muscle? muscle and fat? over them and though I can feel them there, they are..., subtle? I suppose like feeling the back of the hand if the hand is fleshy. (My hand is bony.)
We hope to breed her in Dec. - Jan.
If it appears she is overweight, we would like advice on getting some weight off her. As an aside, how much hay should she get each day? We have a hay feeder and we have been filling it with some flakes off a bale morning and night and they can just eat (and waste) as they wish. Should we change that.
Any comments, advice, suggestions, etc. would certainly be desired.
Thanks,
Michael
Replies
Emily,
There are some miniature goats here. They are goats which are have been selectively bred for smaller size (to ADGA standards) out of feral goat origins. They are not bred for anything other than size, the "cute" factor being the determinant. The problem is that the miniature breeders don't test for CAE, etc. regularly and those diseases are in the herds. We just don't want to risk it. At this point, we will wait on the new little buck to get to the age when he can do the job. I spoke yesterday with a breeder friend in Texas who said she definitely had a buck get a doe pregnant when he was just over 7 weeks of age! She said he was precocious, but that the doe and buck kids should be separated by 8 weeks just for that reason. Yes, it is uncommon, but, yes, it has happened at her place. She said as soon as the penis breaks the sheath, look out!
If, in using Chloe's brother as a sire with her we get problem kids, we will cull/neuter, naturally.
As Deborah said, there are some herds which have some serious inbreeding and have had good results. I looked at the pedigrees of the animals in Chenango Hills. In looking at Chenango Hills Bouncy-Trixie, a top ten milker, there is some very tight breeding (Tom Thumb, Tiger L and Water Lilly repeatedly in ancestors) but it clearly worked.
Maybe our new boy will be precocious too! (He will have to be very precocious though, to get active before the summer heat sets in, in late Dec. and the sperm count naturally is low, as I understand it.)
Are there any other small breeds of goat in your area (like pygmies) you could breed her to? I would think that if she doesn't settle with the AI like you want her to, that even a cross-bred breeding would be better than nothing just so you can get her bred. Obviously you don't want to breed her to a standard sized goat though.
They say that inbreeding creates trash or treasure, depending on the genetics you are working with. I know one breeder who purposely breeds a doe back to her father when she has a new buck so that she can see if anything bad pops up. I've seen some gorgeous animals that were seriously inbred! I mean they were not just bred to a first-degree relative; I mean there were multiple cases of inbreeding in their pedigree so that there were really only about 4-5 different goats in three generations. Inbreeding simply concentrates genes -- good and bad -- and like all breeding, you have no control over which genes get pulled in the creation of each kid.
Your situation is a good reminder to me to be thankful even at hard-to-catch-heats times.
It seems the young, prolific bucks, even breeding through fences, are those catching does that we don't want to breed! I sincerely hope that, in this case, they don't need the fence <g> and he is successful sooner than later. You have worked so hard and so long to get to this point.
On the positive side, I would think that even neutered NDs would be popular since they are so rare.
Michael Garwood said:
Glenna,
Sorry that you have had trouble getting that doe settled. It sounds like that buck should have a sperm count done to see if he has a low sperm count.
You are right; getting the NZ back is not possible, and besides, he is also another full brother to her.
It is hard to be patient at this point, but I think that that is our situation. We just have to wait till this new little buck is able to perform successfully. People talk about bucks being able to be sires at 2 or 3 months, but we can only hope that that is true.
We are quite prepared to neuter any kids from the breeding, even to neuter a doe kid surgically, if there is even the slightest hint of a problem. We also have no qualms about the freezer camp if it comes to that....
-Michael
Glenna Rose said:
Because you need to have her kid, you can always prepare yourself ahead of time for the kids to go to freezer camp.
Though I don't like the idea at all, I am considering having one of mine, now three, bred to her dad who I know is a good buck knowing the resulting babies would go to my son for dinner.
She didn't settle her first year and miscarried this spring so it needs to happen soon before she gets too old. It was the same unrelated buck both years. Of four breedings, only one litter born. My youngest doe at the time went twice, one for 3-1/2 weeks, and didn't settle at all. For the pregnancy that miscarried, the doe was with the buck for three months! The only one with a successful pregnancy was a fourth freshening and was there only a day or so the year before. I'm not even considering the same buck this year after having had no kids this spring counting on him for the two bred. His owner had only two does settle for this spring so I am thinking it might be him, that he just wasn't effective last fall/winter or can only breed does who have kidded before. Good dairy lines mean nothing if there are no kids.
Your situation is quite unique giving you few choices. I wish you the very best with whatever you decide to do. I presume you cannot bring the other buck back from New Zealand now that he has left even if the new owner is willing.
Michael Garwood said:
We stupidly let the two bucks from last year go to locations very far away. One is now in New Zealand! When we did that, we ignorantly thought that since we have semen straws, there would be no problem. Ooooops....
The young buck kid is her full brother, genetically, but we will use him to get her pregnant. Of course if that turns out well, we will call it line breeding!
We had one of the bucks from last year collected before he left for New Zealand, at about six months of age. He could have sired at that age because the sperm count was quite high.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
I've never done AI myself, but I've heard that it's much harder with a FF.
I was wondering why you hadn't used one of the young bucks who are her age. Were they all related? Inbred is better than nothing at this point.
I would not count on a buck to be able to get her pregnant until he is at least six months old. I know there are people who swear they've had 3 month old bucks do it, but I'm skeptical. I've had six month old bucks who didn't get a doe pregnant, even though he looked like he did the job.
Deborah,
Thanks for the link.
I had seen the video (I believe on the ADGA site). Without much experience of goats, and not overly confident, I had assessed our doe at 3 1/2 to 4. We took just her to the vet (for other reason) and asked about the condition. The vet felt around and looked and said 3 1/2 to 4. I was chuffed at my success!
We have had the A.I. tech, who has a good record with larger goats, try to get her pregnant with semen straws three times, but in the end, she contracted a uterine infection. Having that all cleared up with antibiotics (cultures back clean), we are wondering what next. We will probably wait till our new little buck (born 2 Sept.) is old enough to do the deed. If he matures early, perhaps he will be able to get her in kid by Christmas! We have now been told by several vets and breeders to get her in kid naturally the first time and subsequent A.I. will be easier.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
excellent video. thanks for sharing
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
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