Hi, I am new to Nigerian Dwarfs. I have registered fainters and a Nubian. We have had goats (to include Boers) for about 8 years now. Luv the little critters!
I picked up these 2 little silky Nigerian Dwarf does without papers....several ownerships later. They are about 20 inches tall at the wethers.
Can anyone direct me to more info on silky Nigerians and if I can get these 2 does registered. We think they are close to a year old but have no reliable info on them.... pictures on my photo page...
Mocha & Shasta are getting along with the rest of the herd fairly well, but it is hard for them to compete a feeding time. They are sharing the barn with the other goats. How well do they overwinter? We live in Indiana and have a pretty good barn but it is not heated.
And breeding (next spring)... if I can't get them registered - we think the medium size long haired Fainter buck would probably make babies too big for them to successfully birth?
Any comments or advice welcome!
Rosemary in Indiana
Replies
Wow, love that silky long hair!
I'd wait to see how big they get before deciding whether to breed them to your fainter buck.
Thanks so much for your info! Looking on the Nigerian Dwarf websites I did not see anything like them. I didn't think they were a year old yet either so I won't breed until spring/fall 2015. I obviously didn't get good info from the seller and really did not think they were breeding age! I also hope they might get bigger so I could breed with my silky fainter buck. So if they are 50/50 it is ok. They don't faint but that doesn't keep them from being part fainter.... and really cute!
Welcome to the group! Checked out the pics of your goats, and oh my, they are cute!!! They are definitely not purebred Nigerians though. I googled "silky goats" and it appears to be a type of fainter. Maybe they are 50/50, which is why they're so small? I'm wondering if the age is correct or if they suffered some setback as babies because they look really small even for a ND. They don't look big enough to breed.
WELCOME!!
There is no such breed as a silky Nigerian, so I'm not sure what you mean by saying that they are silkies... do you mean that their coat is different than other Nigerians? Is it longer? Softer than you're used to? Were you told they were silky?
It might be that they are crossed with another breed if their coats don't conform to the breed standard, in which case, they will not be able to be registered as Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goats.
You can find more on Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goat breed conformation through http://www.ADGA.org.
Since you have no reliable information on them, I am assuming that the people you bought them from aren't the breeders they originally came from? Either way, unless sales of the goats were documented, you might find it difficult to register them. I have a doe that is an unregistered purebred, but because one of her dam's sales wasn't properly registered, and we can't track that previous owner down, her dam cannot be registered. Neither can my doe or her offspring.
Can anyone direct me to more info on silky Nigerians and if I can get these 2 does registered. We think they are close to a year old but have no reliable info on them.... pictures on my photo page...
Nigerians are hearty goats, and Astrud's information she gave you is correct.
Cross breeding between Nigerians and Myotonic Goats is fairly common, because the breed size is very similar. Don't breed a Nigerian to a large breed buck.
If the dam and sire of the does were registered under either ADGA or AGS (both dairy goat registries) then the does should be able to be registered. Currently both of those registries do no allow the registration of Nigerian Dwarfs without registered parents. If you were able to track down the breeder and get them registered then were to breed them to another breed of goat, those offspring's would not be able to be registered though because it would not be a purebred Nigerian Dwarf. I think that rule has been in place because the breed has not been around for as long as some of the other dairy breeds had, they want to keep the registry for only registered stock, until the breed is well established. Maybe in 20 or 30 years they will allow grade registrations, like they do for the other dairy breeds, but that is not the case currently. There are other registries, but I am not that familiar with their rules. We mainly deal with ADGA.
Nigerians do pretty well in colder weather. As long as they are healthy they develop a nice thick cashmere coat for the winter. Babies may require extra heat when real small.
Welcome to the group!