Should I buy this buckling?

[TroutRiver]

I am thinking about buying a buckling to breed my does to this year. I will have 2-4 girls to breed back this year, depending on whether or not I get rid of my nubian who's been having health problems, and whether her daughter will be big enough to breed this year.

My other option is to use the bucklings that I have from this year (which I could work out so that none of them are related, if I didn't breed the doeling from this year) or to use a grade alpine buck with an unknown milking background that is owned by a farmer friend of mine. I would like to have some quality milking babies, and breed for improvement in the kids, rather than just for milk. I'm not concerned about having purebred goats.

I found a saanen buckling that might be promising. He is from a very careful CAE/CL free herd, they don't show because they don't want their animals coming into contact with other animals at the shows, but they breed registered saanens.

His granddam is producing 7+ lb of milk per day. His dam is a first freshener and he is being dam raised, so they aren't milking her yet and don't know how much milk she is producing. Here is a link to some photos of his dam and granddam (he is "butch," his dam is "amos" and his granddam is "ruffles"). They are asking $150 for him, he will be available in August when he is weaned.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6425855...th/5849672801/

His dam's full sister is in the 14th month of her 2nd lactation, and is giving 4.5lb per milking. Not sure what that's worth. 7 pounds a day does not seem like much for a saanen? That's less than a gallon if I'm not mistaken

What do you guys think?

[KSALguy]

he would be a decent buck to use, if all your looking to do is improve milk and not stay pure stock there is not reason not to use him, and it gives your doeling time to grow, feed her well and she should be fine to breed this fall, you dont want to wait too long to breed a FF to get good production,

[mygoat]

If she's on the 14th month of her 2nd lactation, she shouldn't be producing much anyways, lol. Most people dry them up at 10 months - she apparently wasn't re-bred, though I'd ask why to see if they CHOSE not to re-breed or if she didn't take...

Granddam producing 7lbs per day isn't impressive for a saanen at all. That's less than a gallon per day, at her prime age (I'm assuming the granddam is at least 3 years old?)

Honestly, if your doeling is related to your buckling, but the buckling has better milk genetics than the potential purchase, there is NOTHING WRONG with inbreeding. For some reason, people tend to freak about inbreeding and jump through hoops to avoid it. If you want consistent results in your herd, linebreeding is the only way to get it. You can breed two grand-champions with LA scores of 90+, and get offspring that aren't what you want just because they're SUCH an outblood cross. Sure, anyone can get an exeptional animal here and there, but about the only way to get consistency in a herd, is to line breed.

[TroutRiver]

would breeding every other year instead of every year cause a significant drop in production?

What about the pictures? How does his dam's udder look (aside from being small since she is a FF and is still feeding her buckling) ? I was a little put off by the lumpy look of her granddam's udder... is that ok/normal for it to look like that?

[Alice In TX/MO]

They are OK looking. We don't know their feeding regimen, so it's hard to evaluate production, but they don't seem to be high producing goats. Adequate, but not high as great Saanens would produce. I don't like the meaty look of Ruffles's teats. I can't milk that kind.

Breeding every other year and milking through (not drying her off) is fine. The production the second year won't be quite at the level of year one, but if you just need household milk and not kids, then it might work for you. We did it with one Alpine a few years ago, and it worked fine.

[TroutRiver]

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

Breeding every other year and milking through (not drying her off) is fine. The production the second year won't be quite at the level of year one, but if you just need household milk and not kids, then it might work for you. We did it with one Alpine a few years ago, and it worked fine.

I am wondering because it sounds like that is what they are doing with their saanens, would their saanens be higher producing goats if they bred them every year? Or is it more likely that they just don't have the genetics for high production?

[susanne]

Originally Posted by TroutRiver

would breeding every other year instead of every year cause a significant drop in production?

What about the pictures? How does his dam's udder look (aside from being small since she is a FF and is still feeding her buckling) ? I was a little put off by the lumpy look of her granddam's udder... is that ok/normal for it to look like that?

a lot of people try to breed for extended lactation. raising kids cost a lot of money and time and is not often valued.
people like to have year round milk supply, another reason for longer lactation.
depending on your goal with goats, i would suggest staying in the breed you like. resale is much easier for purbreds then for mixed breeds. but the most importand is to select a healthy buck.
until you know what you really want, use your little buck for your does to bred this fall. gives you time to rethink, safe up some money and when you are ready buy the best buckling your money can buy.

[Alice In TX/MO]

For comparison, here's pictures of my Saanen/LaMancha cross doe this morning. She's been in milk more than three months. Before moving her 700 miles to a new location, she was producing over 11 pounds per day. She's down to about 8 or 9, but with the move and change in feed and hay and browse, that's not unexpected.

We have her, two sisters to her, and two doelings from her. Her mother passed away this spring, but gave us a buckling first, that we are keeping for breeding.

These girls are high, consistent producers, and they have good udders and milkable teats. I love their teats. Her dam was named Princess, and we are working on developing our "Princess Line" in my herd and the herds of two friends.

[saanengirl]

You're right that you are not looking at a lot of milk from those lines, but I do see good udder conformation, and that is worth something. For that price it might be worth a go, particularly if these are registered Saanens. You can always breed to a buck from more productive lines later if you have good udder attachment.

If these are registered animals, could you please provide registered names/registration numbers so I can look them up and give you a more thorough analysis.

Thanks

[TroutRiver]

OK, in a nutshell, here is what I'm thinking about.

I've had this idea in the back of my head for awhile, I've mentioned it before, but haven't talked about it much. When I was younger, I had two "mutt" does (pets) that were angora crosses. I believe they were angora/saanen crosses because they were completely white, and their mother (a dairy goat) was all white. I did not milk these does at all, but they did breed and have kids (we had a pygmy buck that made way too many babies before we decided we had to sell him ). I remember their udders being FULL of milk, unlike our other goats, who were pygmys and angoras, they had the conformation of dairy goats but cashmere-like fleece that shed out every year. I want to try to recreate that cross breed and see if it could actually be a viable dairy/fleece breed.

I am aware that crossing out with a non-dairy breed will mean less milk and shorter lactations, so it will not be as ideal as an all-dairy breed goat. But still, I want to try it. If it doesn't work then it doesn't work, but I just want to see what happens. Maybe it will work, and if it doesn't I don't have much to lose (I have a big freeer )

But first, I want to improve the "dairy" in my does, if you catch my drift. I want to breed them to a really good buck this year, and have (fingers crossed) at least one or two, maybe more really nice doelings next year to try this with.

I am wondering if this guy might not be a bad choice, just because he comes from lines with really long lactations, even though production is not his strong point. Although I may be able to find something better. I also really like saanens, I've never owned one but I really would like to, and they are hard to come by around here.

I probably would not be selling any of the kids, which is another reason why I'm not concerned about having "mutts." I would keep the doelings (and maybe sell my pure nubian girls) and the boys would become cabrito at 2-3 months.

EDIT: Saanengirl, the dam is not registered yet but his granddam is "SpruceRun Princess' Ruffles" ADGA# AS1150313 and his sire is "Snowbird Steve Kincade" ADGA # AS1351260 at Hi-Land farm in Cornish, NH.