Opportunity or pass?

[wintrrwolf]

My friends that have been raising kiko goats for the past 6yrs have decided to sell everything. They are offering me pick of their young bucks or buckling for free if I want shshould I do it? Right now I am exclusivly nubians but I know some cross will boer the kiko's have a higher resistance to parasites

[KrisD]

Are they is ease tested or will they let you test? If so then go for it!

[yarrow]

will he have his horns??? i ask because my old kiko wether Boo.. has HUGE, long curved horns.. (in his younger days he used them to fight with our milk cow!).. we've been lucky that Boo is mellow and hasn't ever used his Swords.. against any of the other goats or us.. but he is almost impossible to trim hooves, give shots to.. cause he uses the horns to knock my hands away... can send a syringe flying across the barnlot..

susie, mo ozarks

[wintrrwolf]

Ya they dont dehorn but all are clean and vet checked. I am not fond of horns but my guys are used to other goats with them, as am i.
Guess I will check what he is offering. I might be able to get a doe but they are all dried up now...there were a couple that had very nice udders and teets...

[Rockytopsis]

I love my Nubian/Kiko cross kids.

Nancy

[CAjerseychick]

We looked at Kikos they sound amazing to me. The local herd isnt clean though.... I am waiting for a better source. This sounds good to me...

[KSALguy]

Kiko is a very hardy breed, developed from feral newzealand stock AND DAIRY breeds, if your in a wet hilly wooded climate they are a lot better choice than Boer, if your in a hot flat dry open environment Boer would be better due to how each breed was developed and where its strengths are.

what is the quality of their stock? I have seen a lot of variation in Kiko stock from breeders here in the states, more so than pure bred boer breeders,

what would be your goals?

[wintrrwolf]

Well tomorrow I am going over there to look, he suggested one in particular which surprised me because this one he was very pleased with conformation and color, surprised that he isn't trying to sell this one (sire sold for $500 at cream of crop sale when he was a baby). Then I got it if he gives him to me he will get to watch this one mature.
His name is Partytime think he has like 3 or 4 colors on white...anyways if I do get him yes I know the rule "ain't true till the pic is posted"

This here is their website I helped them a little with
http://willeyranchgoats.webs.com/

[o&itw]

If they are disease free and you have the room, what would you have to loose?

He is not going to need to be fed goat chow, like your does, and it will give you nice cross bucklings to raise for meat if you are so inclined. Plus, you can take the pick of the doelings and keep any that have high parasite resistance and good udder conformation.

Two years down the road, I may even be interested in some of the offspring

[Cannon_Farms]

You are pretty much taking a goat of higher value and turning offspring into meat animals. If you want worm resistance then cull weaker animals and breed for it moreso than some other potential traits.
The best animals where produced in the good ol days before Culling became cruel, after all do you think 25 years ago when wormers where not readily available that weaker animals lived to contribute to the gene pool?

[mygoat]

If you crossbreed, ADGA does not want you to ever do grading up with the crossbreds. NO grading up is possible if you use Nigie, pygmy, or meat stock to crossbreed into the dairy animals.

The kiko goat assn has a grading up system though - you can register 50% offspring of registered bucks. In the meat goat world, you'll probably be able to sell them but don't expect to make more than half of what a purebred nubian kid would bring in at sale.

[o&itw]

It seems that if showing or selling registered goats is your first priority, then this may not be a good idea. However you don't have to breed the Kiko to every doe you have. Furthermore, if you want to raise goats that are the optimum for hardiness and heath, then this is a reasonable move.

Let me make an observation as an outside breeder who has raised both show and registered animals. Diary goats have been inbreed to a great extent for high milk production and conformity to an artificial standard. That has had a beneficial effect of raising milk production and producing more offspring with well placed udders, etc. However, it can be readily seen that on the average dairy goats have a significantly greater number of problem deliveries, and compared to non-show/registered meat goats, they have more problems with parasites.

Perhaps the development of high milk producing/well uddered dairy goats has reached the point that it is time to pay a bit more attention to other qualities. I think this is especially true as they are things already in the works to make it harder and harder for non-vet persons to obtain meds. It is also important to true homesteaders, to which the cost of these medications, the loss of kids at birth, and the loss of kids to disease, are a non sustainable economic detriment to the occupation.

I have no quarrel with hobby-farmers, to some extent I have been one myself. They differ from true homesteaders, however, in being able to sustain a non-profitable endeavor by supplementing the extra cost. In my opinion, the diary goat industry is to the point with the quality of the animals that they can start to breed for some fundamental health and hardiness in their animals with out losing track of quality milk production.

I know there are currently high producing dairy goats out there, that deliver easily on a consistent basis. This needs to be a priority. It will take some work, but if there are good quality meat goats that can have kids in the woods with no help in inclement weather, then there is no reason that dairy goats cant achieve the same hardiness. I am not suggesting that people have no regard for their animals, but it borders on insanity that diary goat breeders have to spend half their nights in their barns in the early Spring because their does are so inbred that they can't be trusted to deliver on their own without help.

Private rant... all pet owners please forgive me.

[CAjerseychick]

Originally Posted by o&itw

It seems that if showing or selling registered goats is your first priority, then this may not be a good idea. However you don't have to breed the Kiko to every doe you have. Furthermore, if you want to raise goats that are the optimum for hardiness and heath, then this is a reasonable move.

Let me make an observation as an outside breeder who has raised both show and registered animals. Diary goats have been inbreed to a great extent for high milk production and conformity to an artificial standard. That has had a beneficial effect of raising milk production and producing more offspring with well placed udders, etc. However, it can be readily seen that on the average dairy goats have a significantly greater number of problem deliveries, and compared to non-show/registered meat goats, they have more problems with parasites.

Perhaps the development of high milk producing/well uddered dairy goats has reached the point that it is time to pay a bit more attention to other qualities. I think this is especially true as they are things already in the works to make it harder and harder for non-vet persons to obtain meds. It is also important to true homesteaders, to which the cost of these medications, the loss of kids at birth, and the loss of kids to disease, are a non sustainable economic detriment to the occupation.

I have no quarrel with hobby-farmers, to some extent I have been one myself. They differ from true homesteaders, however, in being able to sustain a non-profitable endeavor by supplementing the extra cost. In my opinion, the diary goat industry is to the point with the quality of the animals that they can start to breed for some fundamental health and hardiness in their animals with out losing track of quality milk production.

I know there are currently high producing dairy goats out there, that deliver easily on a consistent basis. This needs to be a priority. It will take some work, but if there are good quality meat goats that can have kids in the woods with no help in inclement weather, then there is no reason that dairy goats cant achieve the same hardiness. I am not suggesting that people have no regard for their animals, but it borders on insanity that diary goat breeders have to spend half their nights in their barns in the early Spring because their does are so inbred that they can't be trusted to deliver on their own without help.

Private rant... all pet owners please forgive me.

Nice post (future pet owner here) very interesting and informative discussion couldnt agree more (Kikos sound like a good fit for our wet slopes)....

[Alice In TX/MO]

Where did this come from?

Quote: "...it borders on insanity that diary goat breeders have to spend half their nights in their barns in the early Spring because their does are so inbred that they can't be trusted to deliver on their own without help."

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of why we attend births. I don't know anyone who has inbred their goats to the point they have kidding trouble.

I attend as many births as possible because I want to. I sure was glad when I was there the time Cassie had five bucklings.

Attending births is what responsible homesteaders do, as far as I'm concerned. Did it for my horses, too. It's also a long tradition with sheep folks.

[mygoat]

Are dairy goats terribly inbred? ADGA does provide inbreeding coefficients and I'd say the average goat isn't *that* inbred from what I've seen watching pedigrees and researching pedigrees. I've been doing a lot of buck research as I'm trying to choose my AI bucks for this year. They do inbreeding coefficients and at least with most of the goats I'm familiar with, I don't see super high inbreeding. Anything above 12.5% is detrimental in commercial sheep herds, and there's lots of data behind that - I bet you could find the level of inbreeding that causes inbreeding depression in goats, I'd bet it's similar to sheep.

I catch dairy goat kiddings mainly to pull kids at birth because I don't want them raising them. With my dairies and boers I don't fear for the does' life, but in early march I do worry about newborn ears getting frostbitten or kids chilling. The boers try to have them outside, oftentimes - which may be fine, if I get there in time to dry them off. If you want kids or lambs to survive at a high rate, you're out in the barn at all hours through kidding/lambing season. If you don't want to do that, yo ucan pasture kid/lamb, but expect higher mortality and you better do it in April or May if you don't want them to chill. It is always to your advantage to pull kids during a troubled birth - a live doe you want to cull for kidding problems and her kids she raised in her final year with you can be sent to meat auction instead ofletting them all die during a spring kidding because you dont' think you should've been there. You're still culling, but you're doing it a bit smarter. Or, when all the does kid out in 5 days with several does kidding on a single day (like what I did), I worry about kids being half-rejected and half-adopted by the other does (had that happen to one this year)... I know my setup is not ideal with perfect individual kidding stalls but there isn't much I can do about it. So yes, during kidding season is more intense than the rest of the year. But after the first week, it runs itself and I almost never lose kids. That's worth it - the more kids I raise, the more profitable they are. Each person is different with their goals and acceptable loss and acceptable work load. What may be fine for me is not fine for others, and vice versa.

I had one boer doe whose cervix did not dialate properly this year. She was a first time older doe, that may be the reason? Who knows. Kid was presented fine but for a while I did not think he was making it out. Doe and large buckling survived, and the buckling was the fastest growing kid I had this year. If she has the same issue this year (or other kidding issues) I'll get rid of her. But I'll do it after she raises out her meat kids for the year so in her final year she still could be profitable, so I don't have to buy or pay to raise a replacement on top of already having a deficit.

[o&itw]

Meant no offense Alice. I understand that people might want to attend births. From an outside perspective, though, it seems to be a good idea. In years of raising cattle, the only calves we pulled were to help the neighbors. There are 15 or 20 people who post here regularly, and having birthing troubles is one of the most common problems I've read about. Rearranging kids that are miss-presented, pulling kids, going in to look for kids that might have died..... this is rare in other farm animals. If it does happen, the dam is culled.

I don't know about horses, but unless one is a cowboy, or has draft horses, horses aren't really "farm" animals any more, except for the fact that one needs a farm size place for their pet.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I had beef cattle. I had a horse. They go together.

Yes, we get the panicked postings about birthing issues. Doesn't mean the goats are inbred.

Other farm animals aren't having three to five offspring at a time, either.

We have goats for the milk, so culling a good producing doe because her kids got tangled just doesn't make sense.

Your post (rant ) has some cognitive distortions in it.

[Phil V.]

I have several friends that still use Belgians for field work. They have 10 -12 head each some have less and some have more. And no they are not amish.

[mygoat]

No, in spring we are flooded with a ton of new posters who yes, come to this site specifically because they have kidding issues. Those posts are the ones who get the most traffic and distorts peoples' views of kidding problems. Many of them post and leave. The rest of the year, there are 15-20 of us folk here.

I think the worst kidding problems I've had in my dairies are with triplets this year - a doe who has kidded 2x with twins no problem had trips for the first time in her life this june. The first one was normal and the other two had a single leg back. She had no problem pushing out the 2nd buck on her own and could've pushed the doeling out herself too, but I was there anyways and dinner was done, so I helped on the last one to be done with it and get food into the kids as well as myself. In sheep, this is called a 'convenience pull', lol. My dad midwifed my doe who had quads and he couldn't keep up with her. My FF had twin boys while I was in the house and had them mostly dry by the time I found them (june, so much warmer) - knew she was in labor but missed it. I stole them and thankfully she just bonded to me and wasn't so worried about the kids... though she did try to steal some boer kids born the next day, lol. While the big groups of kids have more backwards/mispresentations, they are also smaller so the does often have less problem giving birth to them even if in weird positions. The big single buck kids are the problem children... Those can get stuck on ANY doe, even a *good* doe. You can reduce those through good management in flushing and feeding, to some extent. I do not blame the doe for a big buckling rough birth, unless she isn't very prolific and always has singles - then I would cull. But from a doe who gives twins regularly and then has a bad big buckling birth one year, isn't fair to blame her necessarily.

Do not judge dairy goat kidding problems by the number of kidding problems you see on a forum in springtime. Many people only come here when problems arise. The only animals that had kidding problems often were my pygmy mutts. They were NOT inbred, but by golly if I wasn't arm deep in them at EVERY kidding, it was the exception! I've stopped breeding them, butchered the extras and now have a couple as pets only. They're cute wastes of space.

[wintrrwolf]

oh wow yes I know that that crossing my registered diary with registered kiko isn't going to make the ADGA books, I am pretty happy with Pawnee, Pebbles, Nibbler, and Felina's papers and genetics. Pawnee and Shaq produced some beautiful girls. This year all the registered girls will be bred to Monkey though Pawnee seems to still want Shaq (sigh) I may use Partytime on Pearl since she isn't registered or just wait and decide next year. If I do get a kiko doe from my friend then will breed that way.
Well here are some pics of the day...
first pic is of Shaq and Partytime checking each other out
second is Lil Dude (Heidi's polled boy) and PT they were both born in March.
He came with burrs, I managed to get a few out but he still had a few.