Just for milk/family use, can you interbreed goats? Thanks for the info!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

This is what I've heard is okay, and you'll likely get some other opinions. We've bred young does back to their sire, but were careful to sell and not breed back the next generation(granddaughter to sire). We would not breed siblings or keep the young bucks. That way you can keep just the one buck for a small herd indefinitely.

-- mary, in colorado (marylgarcia@aol.com), July 10, 2001.

You can of course, and if you are just wanting to get her back into milk, and putting the kids in the freezer, than sure. But...if you are wanting her daughters to excel, be a better milker than their dam, to be bigger, more robust, healthier, than no, inbreeding when you don't know what you are doing makes for some very unhealthy stock lacking in conformation. Trade bucks with somebody else with a small herd, borrow somebody elses buck, even a buck of a different breed would be better than using a son or breeding a daughter back to her sire. And this is where registration or some sort of pedigree is the key, these animals could be even more related than just being dam and son. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 10, 2001.

I do not recommend this type of breeding plan unless as Vicki mentioned you are experienced and know. There are too many factors involved and you would be doing: A) bringing out genetic defects in the line B) this close of a breeding will bring out consistency, that means no improvement if that is what you eventually would hope for and consistency in undesirable traits.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.

You have described line breeding, that is OK Daughter to father. In breeding is borther to sister. that is ok for milk and meat but line breeding can actualy improve your flock...If you know what you are doing.

-- grant (organicgrange@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.

I will use father daughter crosses, but only when I'm planning on using the babies for meat, and don't need any replacement does. I've gotten some very nice results, which I've gone ahead and kept. I've also seen some pretty strange things crop up on occasion. At our place, we call that problem 'uncle daddy syndrome." If I know I need to be able to keep does, I use an unrelated buck.

-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), July 11, 2001.