Ruminations

[Westwood]

Considering "brush goats" can carry a worm load that would kill dairy goats and seem to be able to thrive on nutrition that dairy breeds can't, has anyone but me wondered if maybe we should cross on appearance for hardiness then breed back up for dairy confirmation? Maybe we should open up the gene pool a bit?

Just thinking here . . . . . ducking and running!

[GrannyCarol]

As far as nutrition... dairy goats need good nutrition to make lots of milk. Brush goats don't make lots of milk, hence they don't need the food. Also a worm load would interfere with the nutrition needed for milk production - making milk is a HUGE load the brush goats just don't have because they don't make as much.

I'm sure that if you kept your milk goat like the brush goat, she wouldn't make nearly as much milk.

Now.. it's likely the "brush goats" are more hardy, that is their purpose. Milk goats have the purpose of making milk... if you breed for that, you are going to lose some of the other things you might breed for. No way around that if you breed for a specialty trait. I'm sure there must be more "all purpose" breeds that will be hardy and give milk, just not as much as a dairy goat.

I guess I'm saying that, if you want tough, then breed and select for tough. If you want milk, tough will have to be lower on the selection priority and also, if you want milk, you will need to FEED the goat well enough for her to produce it - each gallon of milk she makes takes food that a goat wouldn't need if she weren't making that milk.

[Patty0315]

Brush goats also eat brush they are not grazing the grass or eating hay and grain in feeders. they are eating higher of the ground so they do not eat worm eggs.

[susanne]

i guess we would need a definition of "brush goat". up to now my understanding was that any goat that is beeing kept outside on brushland with very limited or no extra feed supply regardless of her breed is a brush goat.
this said you don't need to mix any but manage as if they are what you want them to be.