Best way to cross Boers?

[four_c]

In the first years of our meat goat production and I'm wondering what is the best way to cross Boers with dairy breeds. We don't plan on milking for personal use, just want better more resistant meat goats.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Dairy buck over Boer does. Prevents kidding problems that way.

[Clovers_Clan]

I'm going to disagree and say Boer buck over dairy does. You have the benefit of dams that can produce a lot of milk for fast growing kids, and hybrid vigor. One caveat though, dams need to be mature and good size. Large Saanens, Nubians and Alpines make a good cross.

Do you already have dairy does and are moving toward a change?

If you don't already have dairy goats and the purpose for the dairy influence is resistance, your best choice may be Boer buck over Kiko, Spanish or Myotonic dams. All have been bred for greater resistance and mothering. And being meat breeds, will give you better consistent carcass. Dairy crosses are a mixed bag, depending on the strongest genetics. And some dairy lines are just "too dairy" to make much meat no matter what you breed them to.

[four_c]

Thanks for the advice. Might give it a go both ways. We do have a La Mancha doe but she is choosey about breeding and she has only had 1 or 2 kids since she was bought. We had mytonics but they were the miniatures. My worry about breeding to dairy does is their milk production... Would they have to be milked after weaning?

[boerboy]

I have 1/8 Nubian in few of my boer does. I can see the height and form difference from my pure boers.
For experiment I bought a 50:50 boer/savannah doe. She is pure white with little spots in her ears. I bred her to my purebred boer buck. Now I got a pure white buckling that is 75 percent boer. I am hoping he gets his horns from boer. I am hoping to breed him to a purebred boer to try get a 88 percent boer buck that is pure white.

Just an experiment.

Btw the buckling is stout and looks very u at 8 weeks

[boerboy]

Btw the Nubian mix certainly adds milk to care twins and triplets.
I see relatively more hoof growth than pure boers.
My savannah/boer doe... Hoofs are bad compared to my pure boers. Gonna watch my boer/savannah buckling's hoof ...

[boerboy]

The savannah/boer doe is extremely parasite resistant and so does my purebred does.
But the boer/nubians arent.
But I also suspect that could be age... They s are all less than one year.

[Alice In TX/MO]

You can dry the does off after the kids are weaned.

[mygoat]

I also suggest dairy dams with a boer sire. Does will be lighter framed and milk more than purebred boers. Culling for kidding problems should happen either way. Selecting for quality animals should happen either way.

If you're not looking to milk, there's really no advantage to using full dairy does imo - Crossbreds would give you does that exhibit hybrid vigour (parasite/disease resistance, and improved milk production) as well as hybrid kids when you breed with a boer sire. I've always wanted myotonic/dairy/kiko does bred to a boer sire.

[kycrawler]

We bred lamancha and Nubian doer to a Boer buck . The Nubian cross kids came out nice and looked like Boers the lamancha cross kids had elf ears and were stocky . Next generation of kids looked Boer and some of the lamancha kids had normal ears

[wmk0002]

Interesting topic. All of my does are boer crosses with only one being registered at 50%. The registered one along with the one who appears most boer subsequently have the most parasite issues. Followed by the few others who seem like high percentage boer and then finally by the ones with the least boer in them.

I would similarly like to get some does which are more parasite resistant, maybe a kiko boer mix and continue breeding with a fullblood boer buck like I have. His offspring are always born relatively small no matter the doe but are always healthy and fast growers and look very high percentage. I have considered getting out of boers altogether due to parasite issues but boer kids are high demand around here so a happy medium is really ideal.

[CedarGait]

We use a Spanish buck on our boer and boer/dairy crosses. He's size is similar to a boer meat wise and is very resistant. So far he has passed that on to his offspring. We also are keeping a boer buck from the one we lost this year to cross back to our Spanish does and the Spanish cross babies.

[CedarGait]

Here's our boy

[boerboy]

Wow the horns