This was Betty’s first freshening. I wouldn’t give her an A+ on her pregnancy and birthing, but she did pretty well and birthed two cuties.

Betty’s dam is Georgia, who is black with random spotting, roaning, and frosting. Betty’s sire is is our main herd sire, Tam. He is buckskin. Betty is also buckskin.

Wingman was one of the kids from the first litter born on our farm. When he was born he had the coolest fawn colored hair spattered with roaning. It has lightened up significantly as he has aged. Wingman’s sire is Crash. He had a combination pattern of Swiss marked and medium to light buckskin. Wingman’s dam is Willow, who is a solid cream color.

One buck and one doe for Betty. They are both light buckskin, like their mom and grandsire.

EUMELANIN COLOR

Color	Wingman	Betty	DWB1	DWB2
Dark Brown	–	–	–	–
Black
Unknown	–	–	–	–

PHEOMENANIN COLOR

Color	Wingman	Betty	DWB1	DWB2
White	–	–	–	–
Cream	–
Tan
Gold		–	–	–
Red Brown	–	–	–	–

AGOUTI LOCUS PATTERN

Color	Wingman	Betty	DWB1	DWB2
Solid		–	–	–
Chamoisee	–	–	–	–
Buckskin	–
Cou Clair/Blanc	–	–	–	–
Swiss Marked	–	–	–	–
Sundgau	–	–	–	–
Hidden	–	–	–	–

WHITE SPOTTING & MODIFIERS

Color	Wingman	Betty	DWB1	DWB2
Random		–	–	–
Belted	–	–	–	–
Schwartzal	–	–	–	–
Roaning
Frosting
White Poll		–
Moon Spots	–	–	–	–

POLLED, OR NOT

Color	Wingman	Betty	DWB1	DWB2
Polled		–		–
Horns	–		–

Science is Fun & Genetics are Fascinating!

Please keep in mind this information is primarily for me. I’m posting it publicly in case others are interested. However, I don’t claim to know all the things. This is my method for keeping records of the genetics because I find it fascinating and I’m trying to educate myself.

#2kpioneer

The post 2020 Betty & Wingman Breeding appeared first on .

This is our second breeding season with Bunny. Although she has never had any real problems, pregnancy and delivery seem just a bit more uncomfortable for her than it does for Willow and her daughters.

Wingman was one of the kids from the first litter born on our farm. When he was born he had the coolest fawn colored hair spattered with roaning. It has lightened up significantly as he has aged. Wingman’s sire is Crash. He had a combination pattern of Swiss marked and medium to light buckskin. Wingman’s dam is Willow, who is a solid cream color.

Bunny’s sire is medium gold with darker moon spots. Her dam has a buckskin and Sundgau combination pattern. Bunny is a cream color that has a bit of a gold tinge to it, with roaning.

Bunny had triplets! This was quite a shock since she had a single buck last year.

She had 2 does and one buck this year. Two are polled; one is not. Two are very light in color. One is the opposite – red brown & black with a smattering of white.

EUMELANIN COLOR

Color	Wingman	Bunny	CB1	CB2	CB3
Dark Brown	–	–	–	–	–
Black
Unknown	–	–	–	–	–

PHEOMENANIN COLOR

Color	Wingman	Bunny	CB1	CB2	CB3
White	–	–	–	–	–
Cream	–		–
Tan	–	–	–	–	–
Gold		–	–	–	–
Red Brown	–	–		–	–

AGOUTI LOCUS PATTERN

Pattern	Wingman	Bunny	CB1	CB2	CB3
Solid			–
Chamoisee	–	–	–	–	–
Buckskin	–	–		–	–
Cou Clair/Blanc	–	–	–	–	–
Swiss Marked	–	–	–	–	–
Sundgau	–	–	–	–	–
No Pattern	–	–	–	–	–

WHITE SPOTTING & MODIFIERS

Characteristic	Wingman	Bunny	CB1	CB2	CB3
Random
Belted	–	–	–	–	–
Schwartzal	–	–	–	–	–
Roaning
Frosting
White Poll
Moon Spots	–	–	–	–	–

POLLED, OR NOT

Characteristic	Wingman	Bunny	CB1	CB2	CB3
Polled		–	–
Horned	–			–	–

Science is Fun & Genetics are Fascinating!

Please keep in mind this information is primarily for me. I’m posting it publicly in case others are interested. However, I don’t claim to know all the things. This is my method for keeping records of the genetics because I find it fascinating and I’m trying to educate myself.

#2kpioneer

The post 2019 Bunny & Wingman Breeding appeared first on .

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 complicated, but I have it narrowed down to a few basic components. This is helping me wrap my brain around the science.

For a refresher on basic genetic terms, click here.

PIGMENT

Pigment that makes up the coat color is made of the protein melanin. There are two types of melanin – eumelanin and pheomelanin. A number of different genes determine where the eumelanin and pheomelanin pigments are throughout the coat. Coat color and pattern is a result of the combination of eumelanin, pheomelanin, and white spotting.

EUMELANIN = Produces black or brown. Only one color is present, though – black or brown, not both.
PHEOMELANIN = Produces creams, tans, and reds. More than one color can be present, as can varying shades.

AGOUTI LOCUS (A)

Most of the genetics behind coat color and pattern come from the Agouti locus. This locus determines where and how much pheomelanin and eumelanin is produced. There can be a lot of pheomelanin expressed and very little eumelanin, or vice versa – and everything in between. If a goat displays only pheomelanin and no eumelanin, the goat will be a solid cream, tan or red.   If a goat does not produce any pheomelanin and only produces eumelanin the goat will be solid black or dark brown.

There are at least 21 different possible alleles for this locus – no wonder goats can come in such a wide variety of colors and patterns!

In most cases, tan is dominant in the pheomelanin areas. This can create a variety of combinations when the dam and sire have different colors and patterns because the tan areas of both patterns will generally be expressed.

BROWN LOCUS (B)

This locus is also important in determining coat color. It determines whether the eumelanic areas are black or dark brown. Dark brown is dominant over black, however dark brown is not as common.

The brown locus has four alleles, or four different possible color options. However, any one goat only has two alleles in its genetic makeup – it receives one allele from mom and one allele from dad. The two alleles could be the same (homozygous) of they could be different (heterozygous).

The four alleles in order of dominance are:
Bd: dark brown, sometimes referred to as chocolate brown
Bl: light brown
B+: black, sometimes referred to as the wild type
b: medium brown, very rare

SPOTTING (S)

To make things even more complicated, goats can also have white spotting. These white spots are a lack of pigment and can occur on any color or pattern, masking the base color. The spotting can be very little or cover an entire coat.

The majority of Nigerian Dwarf Goats have at least a little spotting.

EUMELANIN COLORS

DARK BROWN

Dark brown is dominant on the B locus. It is a modifier of black. All areas that would be black are instead dark brown.

BLACK

Black is recessive on the B locus, therefore both parents must pass on the gene for a kid to be black.

Since it is recessive, it can be hidden by another color and be passed on to the kids.

Georgia is black with roaning.

PHEOMELANIN COLORS

WHITE/CREAM

A seemingly solid white goat could actually be a a very light cream color.

Another way a goat can appear white is if their spotting is so intense that it completely masks the true base color.

Willow is cream with white spotting

TAN/BROWN

The tans and browns can range from light tan to a dark reddish brown (different from the dark brown produced by eumelanin)

Vern is buckskin in black and dark reddish brown

GOLD/RED

The golds and reds also have quite a range from a light gold to a dark reddish gold.

Wingman is a light gold color.

I consider Moon’s base color to be a medium red gold.

To determine coat color requires figuring out the base color or pattern, whether the B locus is black or has been modified to dark brown, and identifying white spotting.

Science is Fun & Genetics are Fascinating!

The post Goat Coat Color appeared first on .

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.

Every goat receives two genes of each characteristic (in this case being polled), one from mom and one from dad. Although, only one of the genes will be expressed. If mom or dad have the dominant trait, that will be the one expressed. If neither mom or dad have the dominant trait, neither will their kids.

Since disbudding is not enjoyable for the kid or the person doing the disbudding, being polled is a desirable characteristic for some breeders.

Others believe being polled is a genetic flaw and therefore choose not to breed the trait.

Either way, polled goats are not the norm. Research done long ago showed breeding a polled doe to a polled buck resulted in a higher frequency of the kid being intersex. The research is debatable, but most breeders today still choose not to breed polled to polled.

POLLED PROBABILITY

To help visualize the probability of polled vs. horns in a breeding pair, examine the Punnet squares below.

• The dam has two genes for the polled/horned characteristic – one from each of her parents. The two genes are known and represented in the rectangles.
• The sire has two genes for the polled/horned characteristic – one from each of his parents. The two genes are known and represented in the rectangles.
• The kid will also have two genes for the polled/horned characteristic – one from each of his parents. The possible options are displayed in the squares.

P = polled
p = horned

Since being polled is a dominant trait, if a P is shown in a square the goat will be polled. If a P is not present, the goat will have horns.

The sire and dam each have two polled/not polled genes, but each pass only one to the kid.  The two letters represent the one gene from the dam and the one gene from the sire that were passed to the kid.

The possible results are:
PP = HOMOZYGOUS POLLED. This would result in a polled goat that does not carry the horn gene. This is rare in goat herds.
Pp = HETEROZYGOUS POLLED. This would result in a polled goat that carries the recessive horn gene. Most polled goats are heterozygous.
pp = HOMOZYGOUS HORNED. This would result in a horned goat, with no possibility of being polled. Even though horns are recessive, this is the most common outcome in goats.

PUNNET SQUARE 1

Here we have a heterozygous polled goat (Pp) bred to a homozygous horned goat(pp).

The probability of a kid being polled is 50/50.

PUNNET SQUARE 2

This Punnet square shows a homozygous horned goat(pp) bred to another homozygous horned goat(pp).

The probability of a kid being polled is 0.

PUNNET SQUARES 3-6

These four options are possible, but not likely since most goats are not homozygous polled or bred to another polled goat.

HOW TO KNOW IF A NEWBORN KID IS POLLED

It can be tricky to tell if a newborn kid is polled. It is important to know for sure, though, because you wouldn’t want to disbud an animal that doesn’t need it.

As newborns, most horned kids will have hair swirls where their horns will be.

Polled kids will generally have bumps where horns would be. But, the bumps feel more round and less pointy than horns poking through. Also, if the skin moves a bit at the bump, the goat is probably polled. Skin around incoming horns does not move.

This is our goat, Wingman. He is polled. It is a bit deceiving because the hair where horns would be is noticeably different. However, the hair is more like a cow lick than a swirl.

OUR POLLED GOATS

Willow
She actually had the disbudding process done to her, but is polled. She has produced many polled babies with horned sires.

Willow’s buck from 2017, Wingman

Willow’s buck from 2018

SCURS

Scurs, in goats, are the result of the animal not being disbudded properly. Disbudding needs to kill all the horn tissue. When not all the tissue has been killed, scurs can occur. Scurs generally show up as wonky bits of a horn.

Science is Fun & Genetics are Fascinating!

The post Polled, or Not? appeared first on .

Wingman comes from the first goat kids born on our farm, which means he’s also one of the first goats to be registered with our Plentywater name.

His dad, Crash, has good lineage so I kept Wingman as a way to carry on such good genes. I also love his tan with roaning coloring.

He has a very gentle and laid back personality.

* * * * * * *

PEDIGREE

PLENTYWATER WINGMAN
D1903801P

DOB: 6/20/17
polled
Light gold with roaning, White poll

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

PROGENY

2019

1 buck
2 does

2020

1 buck
1 doe

#2kpioneer

The post Our Nigerian Dwarf Goat Herd: Wingman appeared first on .