Breeding question

[Mrs. Ed]

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway. There is some conflicting advice among the goat owners we know (which is not very many).

We have a VERY nice billy who is now ready to be serviceable. We have a wonderful nanny who has the most beautiful babies, is a good mother and the best nanny we have. The catch...this is mother & son. They shouldn't breed, should they?

[Kshobbit]

Okay I am sure that Vickie will tell you pretty much the same thing.
It is called line breeding and yes you can breed them. You need to be aware of potential very good or very bad inherited traits can come from this. If you are just going to eat the kids or sell them for meat it won't matter too much. You could possible get some excellent kids. that is why the big time breeders do it.
PLease do not breed the daughters back to him unless you are able to destroy any really messed up kids.

[Lrose]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Ed

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway. There is some conflicting advice among the goat owners we know (which is not very many).

We have a VERY nice billy who is now ready to be serviceable. We have a wonderful nanny who has the most beautiful babies, is a good mother and the best nanny we have. The catch...this is mother & son. They shouldn't breed, should they?

We have raised goats for 25 years. We have occasionally bred mother to son or father to daughter one generation. We have never kept a kid from a mother to son breeding. It went for meat. We currently have a doe from a father to daughter breeding and she is souind. We will raise her to breed but only to a completely unrelated buck. We found line breeding beyond one generation produces all kinds of genetic problems and deformity.

[trickham]

Originally Posted by Kshobbit

It is called line breeding

No. :no: Breeding mother to son is not linebreeding. Breeding mother to son is inbreeding. Linebreeding goes no closer than half-brother and half-sister.

Breeders of purebred livestock have introduced a term, linebreeding, to cover the milder forms of inbreeding. Exactly what the difference is between linebreeding and inbreeding tends to be defined differently for each species and often for each breed within the species. On this definition, inbreeding at its most restrictive applies to what would be considered unquestioned incest in human beings - parent to offspring or a mating between full siblings. Uncle-niece, aunt-nephew, half sibling matings, and first cousin matings are called inbreeding by some people and linebreeding by others.

Two articles:
http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/Inbreeding.html

http://www.dailypost.com/~santee/linebreeding.htm

I would not recommend breeding them to produce offspring that you intend to keep or sell.

However, as Lrose said, if you want to breed them for meat and nothing else, then that might be ok.

[Kshobbit]

Gee whiz all the dairygoat breeders that I used to know called it linebreeding but the whole point of this discussion is that you can get some major inherited defects by breeding animals that are closely related. It has been done becuse breeders are trying to get offspring that have all the good characteristics of the dam or sire and usually will cull any defective offspring.
So go ahead and try it and if it don't work don't do it again.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

I always go back to the same answer, if you have to ask, which means you don't know alot about either breeding, inherited problems or the bloodlines of your stock, than NO you shouldn't do it.

I have bred brother to sister, half brother to half sister, and some does back to their sire. I don't call it line or inbreeding, I call it condensing your gene pool. In a well balanced planned mating, if you put your sires paperwork on the table with the doe you are mating her to next to him, you want a triangle of like animals going from one paperwork to the other, and into the same paperwork. You have to know what you are condensing your gene pool for, and to what. Better feet, better udders, more milk, it doesn't always work. IF you are of the sentimental type, than doing this is not for you, you have to be able to destroy kids with severe mouth faults, there is not going to be true deformatity, no cyclops or 5 legged kids (shizhims) don't let people scare you like that, but you will get very poor feet and legs if the dam and sire have recessive genes for this, you will get extra teats if they have that, you will get cleft pallet or parrott mouth or one of the other many many mouth faults. A really good milker with poor udder conformation bred to a buck whose dam also had a really good milk production with poor udder conformation is going to give you an udder with too much milk and no support to keep it from dragging the ground. You have to know what you are doing.

And like all things livestock, don't put human emotions on your stock. Vicki