How many teats should they have?

Mea culpa. I thought Blue Juniper was equating my comment about culls with the goat lady's comments. The lady and I were not telling her the same thing. I only wanted to clarify my designation of 'culls'.

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American by chance, Republican by choice, and Southern by the grace of God

Ahhhh, ok. Getting ready to put an unsatisfactory FB Boer buckling in the freezer next week if it would cool down. Yup, he's a cull.

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Emily Dixon
Ozark Jewels
Nubians & Lamanchas
www.ozarkjewels.net

"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

Actually, I wasn't really equating anything, just thought her comments were interesting in light of what I was reading on this thread. I like my part Boers, and may buy an almost purebred Boer next year -- we'll see.

Kathleen

I was told that the first boers were brought in through embryos and since there were only a very small number of boers in the U.S. that these were very heavily inbred causing many to have more than 2 teats. Possibly one of the the donners of the enbryos had this gene and passed it on and by heavily inbreeding doubled up on the chances of getting multable teats.

Yes the first boers were embryo's they were transplanted into dairy does. The first owners of those embryo's were pretty well known in Texas and those with good stock (had to be at least a 2nd freshener because those boer kids were going to be huge!!!!! (not) Nubian prices soared. Then those bucklings who were sold for thousands of dollars were bred to every Nubian appearing, sick, CL, CAE untested doe we could find and sell. I personally brokered two major herds to supply some of the demand, a demand that was soo crazy we actually put up a gate at the front of our road, and after the second actually pushing fight over the cost of a doe (who was going to spend the most money to get her) we made folks park at the top of the drive, only to come down after the first truck and trailer had left. It was crazy money...peoples retirements were lost just like in Emu.

When the kids were born the problems were eveident, but they were worth way too much to cull for any defect. Hence the poor feet, extra teats etc. Management has done it's number on the longevity, with the grain feeding when these animals were genetically enginerred to run off of poor grass, not grain. The first shows the judges who came from Africa were aghast at the overfed fat pork in the rings. I sold out after attending my first show, the horn rule was in effect, the extra teats were being awarded ribbons, and may the fattest barren doe win! Nope. Luckily for me it was before the prices went down. Vicki

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Vicki McGaugh
Nubian Soaps
North of Houston TX
www.etsy.com/shop/nubiansoaps

A 3 decade dairy goat farm homestead that is now a retail/wholesale soap company and construction business.

Wow Vicki!! You were right in the middle of it!! Say, those first embryos were fullblood Boers though right? They did a flush and just used the Nubians for surrogates I thought. Is all this a hush-hush thing or is there any written documentation on it. I'm not saying it isn't true or that anyone would lie about it; I'm just curious to get my hands on some reading material about it. Anyone know of any published material on all this?