# Goat inbreeding question



## Sandhills

I have American Alpines that I will be registering as soon as I get the herd name papers. These are part of my kids 4-H goat project. The project leader wants to breed our yearling to one of her brothers so we keep the bloodline from declining.
I checked the yearlings inbreeding and it was nearly 15%. How bad would it be to breed her to her brother? The only other option I can find is to breed her to a nubian or an unregistered Alpine. I'm afraid that if I breed her to her brother that we are getting in the danger zone for birth defects and poor milk production. My first experience with dairy goats is when we started this project a few years ago. But I do know dairy cows and I know I wouldn't be breeding siblings. Is it different with goats? 
I would sure appreciate any input as I'm pretty confused.
Thanks


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## Hank - Narita

Look for a nonrelated alpine buck in your area and stay away from the brother and sister combination. We did breed our buck with his daughter this year and came out with 2 doe kids who appear normal.


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## Misty

Sandhills said:


> I have American Alpines that I will be registering as soon as I get the herd name papers. These are part of my kids 4-H goat project. The project leader wants to breed our yearling to one of her brothers so we keep the bloodline from declining.
> I checked the yearlings inbreeding and it was nearly 15%. How bad would it be to breed her to her brother? The only other option I can find is to breed her to a nubian or an unregistered Alpine. I'm afraid that if I breed her to her brother that we are getting in the danger zone for birth defects and poor milk production. My first experience with dairy goats is when we started this project a few years ago. But I do know dairy cows and I know I wouldn't be breeding siblings. Is it different with goats?
> I would sure appreciate any input as I'm pretty confused.
> Thanks


Line breeding will either 1. bring out the best qualities that each parent posess and make them better in the offspring, or 2. be a wreck. Then it is called inbreeding. I have bred to father to daughter with pigs and boer goats with no ill effects. However, if there is a bad trait, it too will be accentuated. My best doe is line bred, son bred mother.........gorgeous girl
www.geocities.com/buckshotboers2003


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## Goat Freak

You cannot do that!I don't know much about Alpines, but I have Boer goats and a goat is allowed to breed with anyone but their brother or sister whether by the mother the fater or both. But a goat can breed with it's mother or father, just not the offspring of either one of it's parents. Hope this helps.Bye.


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## Starsmom

Goat Freak, I know you can breed son to mother or daughter to father, but I wasn't aware of being unable to breed siblings. Haven't done that, have breed son to mother and produced a really fantastic buckling with terrific personality. Why can't you breed siblings? Just like to know to tuck away for future knowledge. Thanks.


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## Tracy in Idaho

You most certainly can breed siblings -- in fact, half sibling breedings are very common. I'm considering an AI breeding this year that will be exactly that -- same sire, out of different does.

What you are doing is condensing your gene pool and tightening up the traits you have. The kicker is you really have to KNOW your bloodlines to be able to do this. You definitely don't want to be linebreeding on an animal that has any faults -- you use the best.

An excellent program that will figure out the % of inbreeding is at www.adgagenetics.org 
Plug in the pedigrees you have and see what you end up with. Heck, I'd love to look at it for you!


The best animals in my herd are 10-15% inbred. My friend just bought a *gorgeous* Ober doeling that is 45% inbred. She is out of a doe that was bred back to her father, who was also her grandfather <g> She will be on her way to Nationals next week.  

Anyhow, all I really wanted to say was don't be afraid to do it -- but do it with your eyes wide open, and be ready to cull if you don't get the results you are after.

Tracy


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## Caprice Acres

i believe that u should only do such close inbreeding if you really know what youre doing. if youre breeding just for fun then you should try to look around for another buck. if you really know what faults your siblings have and what traits you want to breed for then go for it. if not, then looking around for another buck is worth your time and money. personally i would not ever do that sort of breeding on purpose simply because im prepared to admit that i would have no idea what i was doing, or getting myself into.


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## Goat Freak

I just know that they would have to be registered differently than goats that did not come from siblings breeding with each other, at least that's with Boers. Bye.


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## CGee

I have a Nubian buckling that came from a brother and sister breeding. They are from excellent bloodlines. The buckling is absolutely gorgeous. Now at this point I'm not sure what to do with him. I was going to sell him, but is he worth as much as my other ADGA registered goats? Do I go ahead and register him? Do I leave him intact?


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## chamoisee

Inbreeding or linebreeding (which isn't as close as inbreeding) is the only way to get true consistency in you herd. I have done a LOT of linebreeding and some inbreeding. Do not inbreed unless you are prepared to keep only the best and cull the rest.

Inbreeding isn't as simple as bad/good. It all depends on the quality of your lines. It is an excellent way to find out what the genotype of your animal *really* is. Outcrossed animals often look good but do not breed true or predictably. 

Also in ADGA there is no requirement to register inbred goats differently than others, nor does it say anything unusual or different on the papers...other than the obvious pedigree. 

Would this be a full bro/sis breeding or are they half siblings? Is your doe high quality? If she is very high quality the it might make an awful lot of sense to "fix" these traits in her offspring by breeding her to her brother or sire....or cousin or uncle, etc...


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## Natural Beauty Farm

Full brother to Full Sister, will 90% of the time show major problems and strengths, both in the kids born and when you go to breed them if the lines are still tight. It is done in genetics experiments to show the traits of the bloodline, as discussed above. Just FYI, after learning the good and bad of the bloodline, I was always taught that the "experiment" should be terminated and all offspring destroyed so that they don't hurt the gene pool. They are the ones that will start showing cancers, birth problems and changes in shape/form a couple of generations down the line, if bred back to the same genetics, even after out-crossing a time or two. Nubians are already in a tight gene pool, with everyone having their favorite bloodlines.


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## chamoisee

She has American Alpines, though...same breed I had. The Sodium Oaks lines were incredibly inbred, I linebred (and inbred) and had good results. IMHO, very few Alpine herds are genetically consistent anymore; the outcrossing is high even in many of the tops herds, with bucks out of several different lines and no breeding back into the original line after the outcross is made. 

The main thing is: do *not* inbreed if you intend to keep each and every doeling you get. Culling is essential for any goat herd, but even more so if you are breeding tightly. 

I also would really like to see the pedigrees on these animals by the way!


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## Sherry in Iowa

I have to say that I agree with the three above that say it's okay. But things like bad hooves, etc. can be really helped or hurt by this kind of breeding. People like us, who have closed herds, do breed this way.


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## Dreamgoat Annie

Misty said:


> Line breeding will either 1. bring out the best qualities that each parent posess and make them better in the offspring, or 2. be a wreck. Then it is called inbreeding. I have bred to father to daughter with pigs and boer goats with no ill effects. However, if there is a bad trait, it too will be accentuated. My best doe is line bred, son bred mother.........gorgeous girl
> www.geocities.com/buckshotboers2003


*Exactly* what Sherry says. People love or hate inbreeding but it's THE way to set specific characteristics.

My Nubians from Emily's are very mildly related (one or two shared ancestors in the first few generations) but I close breed my sheep as I'm setting a specific type. I won't go into it here as it's such a controversial topic but we've done mother-son, full sibling, and half-sibling matings and they just get better and better. The two individuals we breed to didn't have nasty recessive waiting in the wings to bite us in the butt so we've *never* had a birth defect in 8 years of breeding. Pretty good odds, even if they were totally outcrossed.

Just my opinion (but it's one of my few soapbox subjects). )

Sue


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## Dreamgoat Annie

Dreamgoat Annie said:


> *Exactly* what Sherry says. People love or hate inbreeding but it's THE way to set specific characteristics.
> 
> My Nubians from Emily's are very mildly related (one or two shared ancestors in the first few generations) but I close breed my sheep as I'm setting a specific type. I won't go into it here as it's such a controversial topic but we've done mother-son, full sibling, and half-sibling matings and they just get better and better. The two individuals we breed to didn't have nasty recessive waiting in the wings to bite us in the butt so we've *never* had a birth defect in 8 years of breeding. Pretty good odds, even if they were totally outcrossed.
> 
> Just my opinion (but it's one of my few soapbox subjects). )
> 
> Sue



OOPS! Sorry, *Misty *said that, not Sherry! p

Sue


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## Dreamgoat Annie

Dreamgoat Annie said:


> OOPS! Sorry, *Misty *said that, not Sherry! p
> 
> Sue




By the way, Misty, my best-ever homebred sheep was a mother-son mating too. When I bred him to another of his mother's daughters, the result was *fantastic*. I lost my original boy, Baamadeus, but am so grateful to have his son, the Goblin King, to carry on.

Sue


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## Sherry in Iowa

When we first go into goats..the first Boar buck was crossed with the pure blooded nubes and saanens. The kids were built great..but their feet weren't great when they grew up..their hooves were horrible to keep trimmed up right.

So..we went outside for a different Boar Buck..feet started looking much better...bred back to daughters..great feet.

Had we kept daughters and granddaughters from the first buck and done the breeding over the years..we would have established bad feet.

That's an example of what I and others are talking about.


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## Hollowdweller

If you are going to get rid of the kids for meat or something then there's no worry with that level of inbreeding.

If you are going to keep the kids are you so satisfied with the doe that you think more of her lines would be good?

Inbreeding can be good 2 ways. 

First is if you have something you really like you can concentrate the bloodlines and increase consistency.

Second is if you have something you really like and then there's actually something in the line not so good you can do a close breeding like that and if problems pop up then you are forewarned you don't want to do a lot of inbreeding with those lines or you want to fully outcross.


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## KSALguy

everyone freaks out when they hear the word INbreeding, but there is absolutly NO reason to, you can get just as many probelms breeding un related poor quality animals than anything else, what people dont do anymore is breed responcibly culling anything that is not the best, you can keep all the best doelings you want, thats what your SUPPOSED to do, brother sister mateing is not any worse than father daughter or mother son, its a TOOL to get what you need, if you started out with a poor quality animal and you bred it to another poor quality animal then yes your going to get crap out of that breeding, but if you breed the best possible to the best possible and keep the best out of that breeding and breed that animal back to its sibling/parent/cousin that is just as good if not better then you can continue to improve your line, and actually HAVE a line rather than a hodgepoge of random genetics floating around aimlessly which is what you would have if you keep out crossing to unrelated stock bringing in more and more decks of playing cards,


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## chamoisee

Yes. You will get poor quality results anytime you breed two animals with similar faults, whether or not those two animals are related. Also, recessive genes are not always faults or "bad" genes. Sometimes a recessive trait is something you will _want_ in your herd. Inbreeding is an excellent way to fix such a trait.


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## KSALguy

its like playing cards, if you only have one deck of cards to sort through its easer to know what to expect, inbreeding is like playing with one deck of cards and if done correctly is like winning a game of poker, if you mix in another deck of playing cards over and over again how are you ever going to get it all sorted out? 

inbreeding is a tool that is used to sort through your genetic information to know how to cull and how to breed successfully in the right direction, other wise your just breeding randomly with out much direction, even breeding the best doe from one breeders line to the best buck from another breeders line brings in a whole new set of veriables to be sorted out, you will probably get a good improvement in that first breeding but to get CONSISTANT improvement you have to cull out the wild cards.


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## chamoisee

I agree completely....and would not buy a buck unless he was at least linebred.


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