Breeding Strategies
In order to figure out an effective breeding strategy, you need to understand what traits you already have in your herd and the heritability of those traits. The higher the heritability of a trait, the more likely it will be for the breeder to use the appearance of a goat (the phenotype) to determine the best breeding strategy. Rapid improvement can be made with high heritability traits and a sound breeding program because it is not strongly influenced by environment. When looking at high heritability traits that need work in your herd, try to figure out exactly where the conformation needs help.
However, lower heritability traits will be slow to improve and they may need management changes to see improvement. Always try to minimize problems with low heritability traits with different management strategies. For example, legs and feet are heavily influenced by hoof trimming. Therefore, you should make sure you fully understand trimming techniques before deciding how to deal with the genetics of feet and legs in your herd (think of how pastern angles can reflect trimming technique). You can’t assume these lower heritability traits are solely genetic in origin unless you have seen this pattern in a very large number of progeny over a variety of different environmental conditions from one ancestor.
Once you understand your herd’s genetic weaknesses, you can look for the right buck. One of the most important considerations in any breeding program is to get the BEST buck that will address the major correctable issues in your herd. It is always best to judge a buck on the EBV of his daughters rather than his parents. Although parental EBV can be useful if there are no daughters, the EBV of his daughters (assuming environmental conditions are controlled for) will give a more accurate value of a buck’s ability to pass on different heritable elements.
The buck is the incredibly important “other half” of any breeding program and you simply can’t keep a buck because he looks good, scores well, or comes from impressive lines. If he is not able to pass on the genes that you need to improve your herd, then the buck needs to find a new home. If you can keep several bucks, then consider choosing bucks with different strengths.
It is an important point that any buck that does not suit your needs may be ideal in a different herd, since he may pass on characteristics that the other farm is breeding for. This is why it is essential to know what needs improvement in your herd, so you can make wise decisions and give accurate recommendations to other breeders when you sell your stock (buck or doe). Using official score cards and understanding proper conformation is the key to making this work. The Illustrated Standard of the Dairy Goat by Nancy Lee Owen is one example of a book that can help educate beginners in this area. You can also participate in an online judging class provided by AGS..
So, once you know the characteristics that need to be worked on and you have obtained the best buck(s) you can, how do you determine your breeding program for the foreseeable future? There are three strategies of breeding:
1. Outcrossing
If a doe is crossed with a buck that has no common relatives going 4-6 generations back, it is considered an outcross. This is an ideal strategy for solving faults in high heritability traits. The higher the heritability, the more likely you will be able to see the trait you are breeding for in the offspring. When you perform an outcross, you are increasing the chances of expressing the desirable trait. You may also see hybrid vigor (when undesirable recessive traits are masked by more preferable dominant traits).
Outcrossing is not a guarantee - no strategy is, but there is a chance that you will mask recessive traits that will show up in later generations and reduce the EBV of later generations. Finally, outcrossing does not work well for low heritability traits (since these are difficult to see directly in the phenotype of any goats).
2. Linebreeding
This is breeding between related individuals as close as first cousins. When working with low heritability traits, this is the best option. The key to linebreeding is knowing the conformation of the ancestors and progeny across as many generations as possible of any animal that you are breeding. If a line has consistently shown a trait through several generations and the animal that you have seems to also show this trait, then mating it with an animal that doesn’t have the trait can help correct the trait. It is important that you choose the BEST animals for linebreeding that show superior traits that you want to maintain in your herd. Otherwise, you are breeding for mediocrity that will be difficult to eliminate.
Although linebreeding can help “improve” a trait, it is also possible that breeding closely related individuals will unmask deleterious recessive characteristics (this is called inbreeding depression). This possibility is completely unpredictable and cannot be corrected with management.
3. Inbreeding
This is breeding between individuals that are highly related (closer than first cousins). This is the riskiest breeding strategy and will almost certainly result in some very unfortunate alleles getting expressed. However, there is also the chance of unmasking some profitable recessive alleles, which will show themselves in future generations.
Since some traits are not related to each other at all, it may be important to minimize which traits we focus on and plan for with each breeding. However, if we focus too heavily on one trait over many generations, then we are probably neglecting (or decreasing) other traits. There is definitely a balance and art to breeding but it certainly is the product of close observation, good records, and hard choices.
Weathertop Farm
Registered Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Johnsonville, New York 12094
Rensselaer County
Email us: weathertop@littlemilkers.com
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