Breeding for color -- chocolate

[6e]

I love the chocolate color in almost any animal. Maybe it's my fixation with Hershey bars....but at any rate, goats are no different and I love the chocolate color. In rabbits, chocolate is a mutation of the black gene. You can breed chocolate to blacks, blues and other chocolates and sometimes white to get chocolate, but white tends to make a pale, poorly colored chocolate whereas black extends the black extension and gives a nice chocolate color to the poorly colored ones. I have no clue on goats.

At any rate, I have a buck that was freezer bound, but I'm rethinking him at least for one breeding season. He's almost entirely white except for some 3 to 4" diameter circles of chocolate on his head and neck, but around a couple of the circles he also has a secondary color of a pale carmel color. My does are mostly Oberhasli color, along with a black and white and a white. Sooo, if I breed him to those does, out of those colors, which is most likely to throw that chocolate color? The white doe is a Saanen and from experience, that seems to be a very dominant color and takes over everything else. Seems to be true of the Oberhasli color too. That only leaves me with the black and white doe.

Any goat color genetic experts out there?

[Oat Bucket Farm]

I have no idea. BigWig is the thrower of chocolate around here. Lacey was a creamy blonde color, Hershey is solid black and Tally is black with tan trim and all the babies were chocolate colored.

Edited to add a pic of BigWig. I snapped this today while he was at the fence watching the babies play. Its not the best pic of him and you can see all of faded color from where I was slow getting his copper to him. I can't wait until it warms up and the old hair sheds out. You can see on his head where the color is getting darker as the copper kicks in. It always starts at the head and spreads out from there.

[hyamiranda]

BigWig gets that from his daddy, even though Toby is a light cream color with a slightly darker head. Hershey's mom is also a cream color with two little black dots and look at how dark she came out. Never ceases to amaze me.

[6e]

Hmmm. I'd probably have the best luck then with the black and white doe. Don't have any cream colored does..........well, except for my son's new little Nubian doeling that was born today. She's cream colored. (now where's that devil smiley?)

[LomahAcres]

Yup, I'd say so. I have a saanen/nubian cross that is white/cream colored. When I breed her to my black buck Jacob, I get either chocolate, cream, or brown kids - usually a mix per kidding. I want a chocolate doe myself out of her this year - so watch, this will be the one year she doesn't have one. Hers are a little darker then the one pictured.

[CaliannG]

~smiles and shakes her head~ One thing often said around here is, "You can't milk color!"

That being said, instead of saving a buck you obviously did not otherwise think was good enough to save....send him to freezer camp. You will pay to keep him vaccinated, fed, mineraled, etc.

Instead, use that money to browse the semen sites....that way, you can choose a buck out of the thousands available out there and say, "I am being the responsible person and choosing this buck because he, like many others, will improve my doe's medial. It also doesn't hurt that he reminds me of a Godiva Truffle."

When considering the LARGE impact a buck will have on the quality of your herd, you are going much cheaper in the long run with paying for A.I. for a quality buck that happen to be the color you adore, than in keeping a buck whose ONLY saving grace is his color.

[Alice In TX/MO]

My Saanen/LaMancha cross doe is solid white with elf ears. I bred her to a chamoisee Alpine buck.

She had three kids:
1. solid white with elf ears
2. chamoisee with Alpine ears
3. solid black with elf ears

There's no predicting genetics on one single breeding.

[6e]

Calli, I can't even begin to afford to AI. We looked into the same thing with a friend's cow and it is very cost prohibitive around here and for us. It's cheaper to feed a buck than it is to AI. We have 80 acres of pasture and hay stock piled away well into next year. More than we could ever use thanks to a close friend. Vaccinations are only once per year and the mineral isn't gone through all that quick either. So, the cost of keeping him is minimal. Not that I wouldn't want to use the highest caliper bucks available in the nation....I'd love to! It's just not an option. We figured up, between the price of the shipping container, equipment to do it, and so forth, it was going to run close to $1000. The vet here will do it on cows.....IF you have many cows. He won't do it for one cow. So, when we bought our cow, we actually got a Dexter bull to keep to breed. We watched our friend have his cow dry for near a year and a half because he couldn't find a bull. No one would loan him a bull and the vet wouldn't AI because it wasn't worth his time. Having a bull, feeding a bull, and so forth actually came out more cost effective than the AI thing. Although I would love to learn how to do it myself and there are clinics at K-State and around, but still a lot of equipment we would need......at least for the cow. LOL

The only reason I wasn't going to keep this buck is because he never got disbudded. He came in late and hadn't been disbudded and by the time we got him he was already growing horns. Nothing wrong with him particularly. He's about the same quality as most of the others. They all come out of kshobbit's LaMancha buck which is a really nice buck. So, it's just picking which one I want to keep back. Some were nicer than others. All but a couple are headed for the freezer. He was one of the bigger, nicer ones, but like I said, had horns. I thought about banding the horns when they get a bit bigger. We'll see. Or I may just go ahead and send him to the freezer. But I have to make up my mind here pretty soon cause we'll be banding them all this weekend. Will be too late to change my mind after that.

[6e]

Originally Posted by Oat Bucket Farm

I have no idea. BigWig is the thrower of chocolate around here. Lacey was a creamy blonde color, Hershey is solid black and Tally is black with tan trim and all the babies were chocolate colored.

Edited to add a pic of BigWig. I snapped this today while he was at the fence watching the babies play. Its not the best pic of him and you can see all of faded color from where I was slow getting his copper to him. I can't wait until it warms up and the old hair sheds out. You can see on his head where the color is getting darker as the copper kicks in. It always starts at the head and spreads out from there.

Back when we were in goats the first time, we had a great big chocolate LaMancha buck. He was polled. We liked him, but couldn't keep him in a fence to save your life. When we lost our little girl and got rid of all our animals, we gave him to a friend, but he couldn't keep him in either. So, he sold him to an old man that lived out here that always kept goats and was sure he could keep him in. More than once when I drove by there I would see that buck out in the ditch eating. Guess he couldn't keep him in either. Then one day, on auction day, I saw that old man with that buck and another one in the back of the truck. Guess they were headed for the auction. Too bad too since he had that polled gene. Our friend has one doe left out of that line and she didn't take this year.

[Otter]

Well, yeah, if you're looking to buy a nitrogen tank then AI is too expensive!
But I can pretty much guarantee you that there is someone around who does AI. Find any local dairy or pig farms and ask who they use. If there are any horse breeding stables around ask who they use. If K-State has clinics then SOMEBODY is graduating from those clinics and would like a few extra bucks - call K-State and ask them to help you find an AI tech in your area.
If K-State is an hour or less drive away, offer your doe for a clinic.

Are your kids in 4H? the 4H agent at the extension office may or may not know, but the individual club leaders will know who to call for it.

And don't forget to put up 2 wanted ads. One at the feed store and one at whatever local breakfast restaurant the retired farmers have their coffee at. If one of those old boys can't do it for you they'll have a nephew who does it.

Sometimes you just have to know how to look. And if the vet does it, but doesn't like to do it or doesn't want to be bothered, still, why would he tell you to go to someone else? You might figure out there's other stuff you can do without him.

[6e]

The vet didn't tell us to go to someone else. He just said that he has a minim and that it was not cost effective for one animal. There is only one lady I know that AI's and she has all her own stuff and does it themselves. No one out here AI's their cows. They own bulls. No one AI's their goats. They just go to the local auction and buy a buck. Shrug. We're not into goats serious enough to warrant the cost of what it would take to AI and could never recoup the cost of the kid when you can't sell them at auction for more than $100. But thanks.

[6e]

If we ever get to a point where we're seriously into the bloodline thing, I will definitely keep your tips in mind.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by 6e

No one out here AI's their cows. They own bulls.

Just for info's sake, the vast majority of dairy farms do AI. You'll still see bulls in the pasture as they run them for "clean-up"

I've worked in dairies and they'd be my first stop.
If you ever decide to go that route.

You realize that you now NEED to post pics of the buckling so we can oooh and aaah over him

[6e]

I wish there were some dairy farms left. all around us is all beef and all the ranchers laugh at me cause I have a cutesy little halter on my cow. I remember when I was young there were dairies all over the place. Most have long since shut down. One of these days I think I'll take one of those classes on AI. Maybe I can get to where I can do it for others lol

[CaliannG]

I don't buy the tanks, the equipment, yadda, yadda, yadda....just google "Artificial Insemination" along with your nearest city, and I guarantee that you will come up with four or five places near that city who do A.I.

The cost drops exponentially if you do your own herd synchronization, so that the only thing the A,I, people have to do is store your straws until you use them and then insert them into your does.

I don't have ANY A.I. equipment, period. I have a choice of taking my does to the A.I. people, or having the A.I. people come to me. Cheaper to take my does to them, since I have a small herd. Costs me about $50 or less per doe, plus the cost of the straws of semen. (I do a double breeding if I am going A.I., 2 straws, 8 hours apart once she is in standing heat.)

Now, if you are going to do 20 does a year, then yeah, it is likely worth it to invest in the freezer, tanks, etc., and learn how to do it yourself. But if you are doing 2-5 does a year, it makes sense to contact your local A.I. people and see what is going on.

ANYONE will do a "single animal" if you are willing to bring the animal TO THEM...unless, of course, we are talking about YOUR specific vet, who really isn't human, but an alien from the planet Zortran. Seriously, if someone is willing to pay the ranch call for him to come out, what difference does it make to him whether it is one cow or 100? Silly!

At any rate, while you may want to keep a buck or three, realize you don't HAVE to. A.I. IS affordable for the little people.