A previous post discussed crossing a minature breed with a regular dairy breed.When I was in the beef cattle business,my best cows were out of holstein cows bred to an Angus bull.Breeding an Angus cow to a Holstein bull would be unthinkable due to possible birthing problems (size of calf).Is it relatively safe to breed pygmies to any other breed? Keith

-- Keith Etheridge (gandpa@chipsnet.com), August 12, 2001

Answers

Holstein cows bred to an anugs bull would give you dairy cows freshening with all the milk you want, yet with meat calves that get you more money at weaning. The same thing is done with all breeds of dairy goat does, being bred to meat (boer, spanish etc) bucks, the does are still on the milk string yet their weaned kids have more weight and are sold for meat. Breeding any full size doe to a pygmy or nigerian buck is safe and done also, for pet quality small animals, and in the case of the new mini-dairy breeds and mini-meat breeds, but just like in cows, if you breed the small female to the large male you are just asking for birthing problems. And of course just like in cows there are folks who still just let them all run together and chance the loss of the females! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 12, 2001.

We have Kinder goats. They originate from a Pygmy buck bred to a Nubian doe. Of course there are Kinders that come from a Nubian buck on a Pygmy doe but that is very risky to the doe. We are very impressed with our Kinders, they are good solid goats, have wonderful personalities and milk very well.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@linkup.net), August 12, 2001.