Due to last year’s kids being born when snow was on the ground, I’m pushing kidding dates to March. Below are my planned breeding pairs. We will have 2 senior does that have kidded multiple times, Georgia (who kidded last year), and 2 first fresheners. We will be using Tam again over three of our does. And, to keep Crash’s line going in our herd,
Continuing my fascination with genetics, this post is about the coat patterns of goats.
Although it is true outward appearance is really of little importance, a fun bonus with raising Nigerian Dwarf Goats is the variety of coats and patterns. One goat can look similar or look completely different from their herd mates. I could have a herd of 15 goats and all 15 goats potentially could look different. This fascinates me. The genetic process for goat color is
Simply because I find it fascinating, I’ve been researching the science behind Nigerian Dwarf Goat coat colors and patterns. I have discovered it is quite complex. But for this post, I’ll start with the basics of genetics.
Polled animals are animals born naturally without horns. Some breeds of cattle are entirely polled. There are not any goat breeds entirely polled. In goats, the polled gene is dominant. This means that a kid can only be polled if one, or both, parents are polled.
Last year Willow was bred with Crash. Having been bred with Tam this year, I am curious to see the similarities and changes in her kids outward appearance.
We had three does due to kid the end of February to the beginning of March. Thankfully, all three mamas did great and we had a problem free kidding season.
Georgia was a first freshener this year, so I was excited to see what her babies would look like and what kind of mom she would be. The babies are darling and she is a great mom.
We just brought Bunny home last summer, so this was our first experience with breeding her. Her coloring is similar to Willow’s, so I was interested to see the similarities and differences between their kids.
A couple weeks ago I attended the NWODGA’s annual goat conference. It was a great day and I learned a lot from the speakers I had the privilege to listen to.
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