Ok, I lied...

[xoxoGOATSxoxo]

about no more breedings. Kiko came into heat and a friend has a lovely Alpine buck, no Saanens at this time. I'm not sure what came over me, but we went over there.... So in late May (this was before new years) I may have some crossbred babies. We'll see if she caught.

I wonder, though, what the babies will look like? Will they be alpine colored if she carries color genes? Her daughter was bred to an Alpine last year and had one white and one chamoisee. Does that mean that she carries color genes? Her father was an American Saanen. I know Kiko is part Boer, way back, and its completely possible that shes part alpine too. I'd just like to know more about what she carries.

[KSALguy]

kiko is not part boer if your talking about the KIKO Meat breed, they were developed on two compleatly differint continents from two compleaty differint gene pools,

Kiko is the NewZealand version of the Spanish goat in the US, feral goats that the meat market down in NewZealand selected for size and grow out on their native wet rocky wild environment, no use of the South African desert/savana bred Boer, there have been some Cross breeding between the two breeds to try for Hybred vigger but the two breeds are separate as breeds go,

being feral by decent its possible there could be alot of color in there some place but the majority that came to the US seem to be dominant white or some other light colors,

[betsy h.]

I've seen Saanen xkiko kids and they are dandy little goats- ears mostly upright and a little more 'beefy' across the shoulders than a full dairy animal- I hear from kiko breeders that some xbred dairy/kiko does were highly sought after at a high brow kiko sale sometime back- these were xbred w/ Oberhasli and they brought very good prices- $400 up......so, IMHO, they should be some good home milkers.....

[betsy h.]

KSALguy- oooohhhh, them's fightin' words to some Kiko breeders:-) - the Kiko was developed in NZ from using feral goats and crossing them with large framed Saanens and Nubians- I've heard them termed 'Saanens on steroids'. :-) And I've watched the purists go at it over who has the real Kiko- Graham Cuilliford of NZ has a patent on the original NZ genetics and he has threatened law suits over this! He's a lawyer, FWIW. Others over here have done that too, but there are two main registries for Kikos- AKGA and The IKGA (I watched the 1st one implode to create the 2nd one, then the 2nd one almost imploded because of the same BS tactics that the 1st one imploded from, all about the same troublemaker)- from there you get the NZ fullbloods, the American purebreds (upgrades from the NZ gene pool with US goats), the Bo-Ki, the Meat Master, etc. and all kinds of commercial goats in between. I don;t know why they are so persnickitty, but they are......makes no sense to me and does not matter.....they all look alike with their hides off.

[KSALguy]

come to think of it i do remimber reading where some dairy blood was used in the original consolidateing of the feral stock gatherd from the NZ mountans, but not enough to make dairy stock out of them, just to get a larger bone structure,

Kikos do very well in a more wet scrubby type setting it seems than the boer, boer were not used in the original stock and do better in a dry climate, both have their nich and both tast grate with their hide off as you say,

[xoxoGOATSxoxo]

Well, thank you for all the great Kiko information. But this goats name is "Yukiko", and I call her "Kiko" usually. Shes a grade Saanen, not a Kiko and when I bought her, her breeder showed me the records that were kept and somewhere not too far back there was a Boer. Lot of mystery "Saanens" in there too, and since this is an Alpine-y sort of area its completely possible that shes got Alpine or other breeds mixed in. Anyway, she's a bit bigger than your average Saanen, and longer with semi-airplane ears. I've always assumed this was from her Boer ancestor.

But thats enough about my oddly named does pedigree! I'm just hoping for babies.