So you need a Herd Sire...

Every year breeders make a few decisions that influence the progress of their herds.  No decision carries more weight and “angst” than choosing the sire, or sires, of the next year’s crop of kids.  For those whose herds are well established and for those whose herds have uniformity among their does, the decision could be “which buck.”  For most breeders, needs for improvement in their herd vary from doe to doe with several concerns vying for attention.  In this case the best solution may be to use several different bucks.  Most herds have at least 2 bucks.  Some of us may have almost as many bucks as does.  The purpose of this article is to share some thoughts on choosing and keeping herd sires for your MiniNubian herd.  Even though some of the advice is specific to breeding MiniNubians, most of the principles are universal for all breeds.

 Define Your Goals

So what is your goal for your herd?  Can you describe the ideal MiniNubian and outline what that animal looks like?  It might be good to put this down on paper for yourself.  Here’s a brief description of my ideal MiniNubian:

·     General Appearance – Feminine (does) masculine (bucks), strength, upstandingness, length and smoothness of blending; slightly taller at withers than hip; prominent withers, elbow smooth to chest, deep, wide chest floor with nice brisket; strong, straight back with level chine, wide hips , rump that is nearly level from hips to pin bones; flat and strong bone, straight, wide apart and squarely placed front legs with clean knees; wide set rear legs well angulated when viewed from the side, strong feet.

·     Dairy Character- general refined but strong bone structure, without coarseness; long, lean neck, that blends smoothly into the shoulders, clean cut throat and brisket; prominent withers; ribs flat and wide apart; deep flank; Thighs that are moderately incurving from pins to stifle, from rear hocks wide apart from wide hips and out-curving to the escutcheon for ample room for well attached udder.

·     Body Capacity - deep, wide chest, well sprung ribs at the front; long, wide and deep barrel increasing into a deep, but refined flank.

·     Mammary System -  Strongly attached udder, balanced, adequate capacity; strong medial suspensory ligament defines udder halves clearly holding the udder snugly to the body; Fore, rear and lateral attachments strong and smooth; smooth fore udder wide and full to the side and smoothly blending into the body;  Rear udder high, wide and arched into the escutcheon, wide and deep to the udder floor; udder balanced and shows symmetry; soft texture, well collapsed after milking, halves evenly balanced; teats that are uniform in size, medium length, proportionate to the side of the udder, cylindrical in shape, pointed nearly down or slightly forward.

Breed Character -  This is usually placed under General Appearance in the “scorecard”.  Obviously, if the MiniNubian has every good characteristic, but does not look like a Nubian goat in Miniature, then you are not reaching your breeding goal.  However, there has often been such focus on this set of features, that many serious needs have been ignored.

 Evaluate Each Doe

So, how do your does stack up?   Well, my “Ideal” is a tall order.  It should be, this is taken largely from the dairy goat unified scorecard that can be found on the ADGA site. http://adga.org/Scorecard.htm  I’d advise you to head over to that site and print this out to review the full card and have as a reference.  Go through your herd and evaluate every doe according to the ideal.

Are you thinking, “Wait a minute, I thought we were talking about choosing a buck!”  You are right, but the buck you select is to be chosen on his potential ability to improve your does in areas of need.  So, evaluate those does before you look for a buck.  This will give you the points you must look for in selecting the right one.

Now that you have evaluated your does, how do you decide what is the most important feature to work on improving?  The scorecard can help you here, too.  Each item in the scorecard is given a point value to equal a total of 100.  Here are the totals for the four main areas as above: General Appearance 35; Dairy Character 20; Body Capacity 10; Mammary System 35; and – breed character – as a part of General Appearance gets only 5 of the 35 points for Senior does! 

For an excellent illustration of the parts of a goat take a look at these sites:

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~pazzani/4H/Java/GoatPartsTest.html

http://www.goatweb.com/discover/goats/parts.shtml

http://www.imagecyte.com/animations/bones.html

 Choose Your Focus

What do I focus on?  I strive about equally for General Appearance and Mammary System.  I tend to focus more on Mammary in my own herd since I have not allowed any animals with serious issues in conformation to be part of the breeding herd.  Some of the features relate.  You rarely see a nice high and wide rear udder on a doe with a steep rump, for instance.  With the crossing of Nigerian with Nubian we often quickly lost the long, graceful neck and prominent withers of the Nubian, an essential characteristic of the breed we are trying to emulate.  So, this becomes and issue of breed character, too. 

 Junior or Senior?

So, how are you going to know that one buck is better than another, and how will that affect your herd?  In choosing a baby buck, you will need to look beyond the individual buckling.  Look his family over carefully.  First and foremost is to evaluate his dam.  She should be as close to your ideal as possible.  However, since this is an emerging breed coming from some very different conformational breeds, you may have to weigh this against your own herd needs.  Then look at his sire.  How does he measure up to the standard. If he has daughters, how do they measure up?  The best practice is to purchase a kid from a proven buck and out of a proven doe – they have had kids some of which are now milking daughters that you can evaluate.  So, you can also see that this proven buck could be your better bet, if you can get him, than the baby who has “potential” but has not proven himself.  Since this is a relatively new breed, such superior and proven stock isn’t always available.  So, you still evaluate the ancestors as best as you can with the information you are able to get.

 Which Generation?

Of course, one of the issues facing MiniNubian, and other MDGA goat breeders, is generations.  I’m not going to go into this here.  My advice is to focus on getting the appearance and type you want and not focus too heavily on going quickly up the generation ladder.  We all want to get to purebred status.  Let’s get there with animals that not only look like little Nubians, but are animals that we can be proud to display against any other dairy goat of quality. 

So, a good buck is of any generation and any color (I won’t address color as it is just logical that color preference is mostly for pet owners.  It shouldn’t be an issue of great importance to serious breeders.  Not that things being equal, you wouldn’t prefer one over the other.  Let’s just make sure things are equal!) If you have a picture of your ideal firmly in mind, and you have the opportunity to evaluate the family of your potential new herdsire, AND you have evaluated your does carefully, then let the selection process begin!

 Who to choose?

I still hear a lot of people who say, “This year I’m hoping to get better noses (Roman) in my kids.”  This is a worthy goal in perspective.  I’d rather hear, “This year, I’m going to work on improving general appearance, especially looking to improve the levelness of the backs, length of body and more level rumps for this next generation in my herd – without sacrificing breed character (ears and noses).”  Of “This year, I’m going to focus on improving the height and width of rear udders, levelness of rump, and width in rear legs - without sacrificing breed character (ears and noses).”    So, I’m choosing my new herd sire on:   

• His own appearance – just because Mom & Dad are great, doesn’t mean it was a good match.  So never buy a substandard baby on the strength that the parents are really nice.  He has to stand on his own merit, too.
   
• Dam – She should be an exceptional doe with no serious faults and evidence the characteristics you want in your herd with a focus on having the qualities you are looking to improve. 
   
• Sire- Over all appearance should be very good to excellent.  His daughters bred to  does of all varieties show improvements in the areas you are looking to focus on without losing quality in any areas in which your herd is strong.
   

Evaluation of Strengths and Needs in my Herd

My does areas of need – improvements aimed for in the next generation: Improvement in levelness of rumps; greater width and higher area of attachment in the rear udder. 

My does strengths: strong  medial suspensory ligaments and fore and side attachments, excellent capacity, strong, long and level backs. 

This is My Ideal Buck

My ideal buck will have these elements to win a place in my herd:  His dam has a higher and wider rear udder attachment than my does.   His sire also seems to improve his milking daughters in this area.  PLUS the buckling has width between the hocks, a level rump and height and width in the escutcheon area.  Oh yes, he should LOOK like a MiniNubian.  I want to see ears no less than 2/3 drop in early generation bucks and at least a straight face if not more roman.  Hey, if he’s a MiniNubian, he should LOOK like one! 

This is by no means an exhaustive study and no doubt contains lots of omissions and even some flaws.  Let it be said that breeding is an art and a science and sometimes a bit of a game.  So study your herd and the breed ideal, make your best choice, and let the games begin!