buck question again

[susanne]

if i want to maintain a close herd and keep my own bucks, how often could i breed back to his own daughters or grand daughters? how are other people handle this? do i have to buy a new buck every second season? i'm planning to have about 4 to 6 milking does and around 10 or so boer does. alreaady have 2 nubian does and a boer buck and planning to get a nubian buck in spring.
susanne

[Thumper/inOkla.]

If you have a really great buck, 3 generations is what comes to mind, but if he is not so great, not more than two, he can keep breeding the same group of doe's for the rest of their lives, if you sell or cull the babies every year, but as the doe's get older and you want to replace them with his daughters or grand daughters, you would need a new buck, by then you will know what is good about your goats and when you have babies show up that aren't quite right, you need a new buck.

I know some people that buy a unrelated doeling, just to get a new buck out of, it will have 1/2 the quailties of the standing buck, but have 1/2 that no other doe has, then they can sell both the old buck and the doe the replacement came from. This is now new breeds of goats and so forth are stablized, without too much inbreeding.

[trickham]

Originally Posted by susanne

if i want to maintain a close herd and keep my own bucks, how often could i breed back to his own daughters or grand daughters? how are other people handle this? do i have to buy a new buck every second season? i'm planning to have about 4 to 6 milking does and around 10 or so boer does. alreaady have 2 nubian does and a boer buck and planning to get a nubian buck in spring.
susanne

What you are suggesting by breeding him back to his daughters and granddaughters is inbreeding. It is not a practice that I recommend for everyone. In certain controlled situations, inbreeding can be an effective short-term tool. However, unless you are very knowledgeable in genetics and prepared to cull your herd VERY HARD, I wouldn't use it.

What I think Thumper may be suggesting is called linebreeding. It is similar to inbreeding, but not quite as intense, and is usually used to preserve the genetics of a particularly spectacular animal. If you had high quality animals and wanted to close your herd, it is the tool that you would use. The genetic relationships in linebreeding can come no closer than 50%. For instance, a buck could be used on all of his half-sisters, because they are all 50% common buck, 50% different does, but not on his full sister as they share the exact same genetics.

So this year, you breed all of your does to your current buck. Next year, you have several options. First, you can buy a new buck to breed everything, including the does produced from this years mating. Second, you can use the old buck on the original does and purchase a new buck for the does produced this year. Third, you could use the old buck on the original does and pick the best of his sons to breed to his half-sisters.

Personally, unless you are starting with high-quality stock, have knowledge of genetics and are willing to cull your animals very well, I would go with option one or two above.

[NewlandNubians]

I have a suggestion. Why don't you learn how to AI? You could look around in your local area for someone with a semen tank. Chances are they'll lease a little space to you. The cost of leasing space in a tank should not be much, I quoted a friend $20/year (which is almost the cost of one fill). Semen out of very, very well-bred bucks can be purchased for $10/straw or less. This will not only solve your linebreeding/inbreeding problem, but it will allow you to use lines that will improve upon your herd. Even if you only AI your very best doe(s), you can keep a buck kid out of that resulting breeding and use it on other goats in your herd. There is also not much chance of introducing disease in your herd with AI. YOu can choose to only buy semen from bucks that are tested for CAE, CL, TB, Bangs, G6S, you name it. SEmen can be inexpensively shipped in from all over the country.

There are several semen processors that hold classes all over the US. Superior Sires is a good one. Biogenics is good also. I took my AI class at the ADGA national convention. YOu can also order an instructional booklet from the ADGA that will help you out. The equipment to do AI is not too horribly expensive either (except the semen tank).

You really ought to think about it. Ask away if you want, I'll try to answer any questions.

[NewlandNubians]

I've always heard that brother/sister (and half-brother half-sister) is worse than father/daughter. I would not go the half brother to half sister route. Mainly because if this person's herd is anything like mine, all of the females are already closely related and breeding a half sister to a half brother (on the sire's side) would be almost like breeding a full sister to a full brother because the dam's lines are so close to each other too.

I personally would give the green light to breeding the sire back to his daughters. I don't think you will get anything too strange there unless the lines are already pretty closely related (meaning the sire and dam are related somehow). True, you would have to have a grasp on what your buck is throwing to venture in doing this, but you could do it and end up with some nice stuff.

The problem I've come across with linebreeding is that if you try to incorporate any new blood into a herd that is closely linebred, the results can be disasterous. The crown point herd of nubians is a good example. Many of their more well-known sires are closely linebred and will not cross well with just anything they are bred to. You can cross some of the crown point bucks (like masterpiece and tiger shark) with really nice goats and have horrible results becuse the two lines are more prone to clashing if the dam's line is linebred one something totally different. See what I'm getting at here?

Originally Posted by trickham

So this year, you breed all of your does to your current buck. Next year, you have several options. First, you can buy a new buck to breed everything, including the does produced from this years mating. Second, you can use the old buck on the original does and purchase a new buck for the does produced this year. Third, you could use the old buck on the original does and pick the best of his sons to breed to his half-sisters.

[trickham]

Here is a good site explaining linebreeding:
http://www.dailypost.com/~santee/linebreeding.htm

I don't recommend linebreeding or inbreeding or anything except regular breeding to beginners.

AI is an option, even if you have to have a vet do the AI work.