How close do you "line" breed?

[harvestmoonfarm]

What's the closest you'll breed when line breeding (since it's only inbreeding if it doesn't work)?

Mother/son, brother/sister, father/daughter... I'm just curious what your experiences have been with various combos.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I've not had good success with line breeding of full size goats. The resulting goats were not hardy.

[Doug Hodges]

I was advised to breed a great buck to his daughters. I am going to breed the Goldthwaite buck to the Goldthwaite does.

As long as you are willing to cull for meat any undesirable outcomes, any are possible. I personally have only gone as far as sire to daughter. I would not try brother/sister but that's only my decision. Not saying it's right or wrong.

The reason I mention being willing to cull for meat is right now there is someone in my state with a CL ad selling a mature doe with a severely undershot jaw as a breeder. That is just one example. I have seen many.

[Kasidy]

I have never registered or shown my goats. But since I milk them to raise lambs and calves I have always raised does with good bags and high milk yield. (Not sure and don't care about the beauty contest aspect!) Since I have never had more than 8 does I can't afford to run more than one buck. When I need a new buck I have always bought the best one I could afford---taking a good look at his mom to ensure the bag/milk requirement. I have kept quite a few father/daughter bred does over the years and have never been disappointed. I think the important thing in line breeding is to be sure both animals are of good quality with no defects. That way the good traits seem to be passed on and/or reinforced.

[harvestmoonfarm]

I see father/daughter seems to be most popular. What about mother/son? Does anyone have any experience with that combo? I'm considering keeping my Alpine's triplets this year (a buckling and two doelings), which is why I'm asking. I don't show and don't sell for anything other than pets/milkers, so I'm not concerned about perfection. However, I do want healthy animals and am willing to cull hard to keep defects out of my herd.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Just look carefully at the offspring. Conformation, number of teats, unicorns, third eyes. :P

You can always cull.

[mygoat]

Inbreeding on anything can work or not, depending. Only linebreed on very strong, high quality animals and plan on culling heavily (as you should be doing normally anyways!) If it's just to freshen does, then any breeding will do that. IMO, keep mindful of inbreeding coefficients as higher coefficients are correlated with less hardiness, lower prolificacy/production etc in other species.

I've bred daughters back to fathers, here. Next year I'll be doing mother/son breedings. I would hesitate to do full brother/sister breedings but may consider half siblings.

[hiddensprings]

I keep two unrelated bucks so I can breed Roo and Gwendolyn's daughter to Barry for example. I don't like to breed father to daughter.....or son to mother.

[AuntKitty]

I have had accidental mother/son breedings of my Nubians with no problems. I would not breed brother/sister because they have the same genetics. Mother/son at least there is the sire's genetics in the mix as well to make the genetic pool a little larger. I wouldn't retain any kids from a mother/son breeding though. Lord knows what would happen if they were accidentally bred by their father! There's your unicorn, Alice!

Kitty

[madness]

Our first goats came bred to their half brother. Nearly all of them had some sort of conformation issue. We tried another line breeding from the same group but not as close - still got bad results. We have French Alpines and the stock around here already seems pretty well inbred so we now venture out nearly completely from our originals. You just have to experience what will happen!

[mygoat]

Originally Posted by madness

Our first goats came bred to their half brother. Nearly all of them had some sort of conformation issue. We tried another line breeding from the same group but not as close - still got bad results. We have French Alpines and the stock around here already seems pretty well inbred so we now venture out nearly completely from our originals. You just have to experience what will happen!

I have french alpines too, and feel your pain. A few breeders in the area but a lot of common genetics. I've turned to AI to try getting other genetics in. Problem is, it can be HARD to find the kind of top quality french genetics I'd like to have in my tank... finding American is significantly easier, and I have used American semen before. I'm trying to stick to French when I can.

[Suzyq2u]

We have (unintentionally) had a mother/son, full brother/sister, and then the off spring of those pairs bred to the same buck.
We had 2 that had an extra teat. The rest were all great for what we needed, milk or meat. They culls were/will be culled & the boys wethered. The buck has since gone and only mama, his sister and one mother/son doe remains. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if we were in need of meat/milk. It does have a bit of a yick factor in the mind though

[harvestmoonfarm]

These kids are just so darn awesome that I can't bring myself to part with any of them. The buckling is going to be a big boy like his sire (which we lost in January) and is as sweet as can be. His sisters are both gorgeous as well, and have the potential to be awesome producers. I guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best next year

The first photo is of all 3 kids, taken a couple weeks ago - not the best because they weren't cooperating - and a photo of their dam's udder this past Monday (the kids will be 4 weeks old on Saturday). Their dam is a dream to milk and is just an all-around awesome doe. I'd love to pass that down to another generation via the buckling if possible.