# What about Boer and Nubian crosses?



## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

Several of you like Kinder goats. They're Nubians crossed with pygmys. What about the Boer/Nubian crosses that I see advertised locally? Would they be good as milk goats? My plan, for now, is to get two nubian does and breed them to the boer buck across the road. If a nubian/boer cross would give good milk, why wouldn't I want to just start with that cross and breed them back to the boer buck? I should get meatier kids that way, right? What do you think?


ps, what does "enobled" mean?


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## Freeholder (Jun 19, 2004)

I'll be watching for answers to this question, also. The only Boer goats I've seen had terrible udders, including four teats, so I'm pretty dubious about crossing them for dairy purposes.

Kathleen in Oregon


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## geminigoats (May 10, 2002)

Boers as a general rule, or most meat goats too, do not produce the quantity of milk that dairy goats do. That is one reason why many folks will cross with a dairy breed to get more milk for faster growing kids and meatier. So in that regard your thinking is right on the money. Nubians are one breed that is commonly used to cross with a Boer. 

Many yrs ago we had Boers and I found them to be minimal milkers. According to the history of the Boer,..... now, its been years since I have raised them, so correct me if I am wrong here Boer folks, but in Africa they were bred from the Nubian goats, by that I mean there was Nubian in their development. Then eventually they were smuggled out of South Africa (embryos) and taken to New Zealand, hence the 2 types of Boers. Then they made their way into the USA and were quite expensive in the day, selling for over $100,000. 

And, the four teat problem the Boers have is actually derived from their genetics that created them. I read that in several articles both in the goat magazines and online back 6 yrs ago. There was a dispute a few yrs back about 4 teated Boers within the Boer world, its been so long I cannot recall the details now. I think if they were going for meat anyways, 4 teats really wouldn't matter. Unless they were spur teats and had no milk which could cause problems for nursing kids if you had triplets. In the dairy world anything more than 2 teats is a "no-no" in genetics so....there ya have it in a nutshell.

Bernice


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## dscott7972 (Aug 25, 2004)

My best milker and sweatest goat is a 1/2 Nubian/1/4 boar/1/4 pygmy.


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## Patty0315 (Feb 1, 2004)

For meat kids alot of folks like 1/4 dairy to 3/4 milker. Some meat goats dont give enough milk to raise multiply kids. If you plan on selling the kids go for it the should grow meatier than a start dairy but not as much as a full meat goat. Keep in mind highbred vigor. 2nd and 3rd generations would loose out in multiply crosses. Also keep in mind the better milk buck you breed you does to the more milk she will give for that lactation.


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## debitaber (Jun 6, 2003)

my best milker, is half nubian, and half boer. but I bred her back to nubian, so that her kids will be 3/4 nubian. because of the milk. Boers milk isn't as rich as nubian, now if you bred one, and get one that takes after the boer , in milking, you won't get a lot of milk, and it will be watery. I like my good really rich nubian milk. I am spoiled. but once in a while, I do throw in a boer, or alpine of something, just for one generation, so that I can get a mix in the blood. 
debi


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

Patty0315 said:


> Also keep in mind the better milk buck you breed you does to the more milk she will give for that lactation.



That totally confuses me. Am I reading this wrong? Does the genetics of the buck affect the doe that he's bred to? How can his background affect the lactation of the doe? I understand that this will effect any daughters that he has, but not the mom of those daughters. Please help me understand all of this.


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## debitaber (Jun 6, 2003)

It won't have a thing to do with the doe, but with the daughters. some one miss spoke.


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

debitaber said:


> It won't have a thing to do with the doe, but with the daughters. some one miss spoke.



Thank you so much. I am really bad OCD and I could see myself staying up all night tossing this over in my brain. I was worried that all my years of studying genetics in various animals had been proven wrong when concerning goats.


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## Tango (Aug 19, 2002)

My buck, Cry Baby, is 1/2 Nubian 1/2 Boer. He's a sweet guy and a very beautiful one. My doeling Kazaa is 3/4 Boer and 1/4 dairy but I'm not sure which dairy breed. Her mother Napster is 1/2 Boer 1/2 dairy (bred to a 100% Boer which is Kazaa's dad)and gave a LOT of delicious milk (though I couldn't milk her very well since she seems to have been quite wild or mishandled before me). I've gone with this cross because I wanted both. We butchered our first buckling at 12 weeks. He was large and the meat tender. From my understanding the genetics of the buck will influence the quantity of milk in his doelings. I'm hoping Cry Baby's genes will bring some great milk and meat here. Kazaa, when she is ready, will be bred for meat goats not to be milked. I have a registered Nubian for our milk.


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## debitaber (Jun 6, 2003)

I think that they wioll. as long as you keep it 1/2 of each, I think you will find the milk is great..


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## Patty0315 (Feb 1, 2004)

Sorry guys but I believe I am right about my buck statement. I could not find the papers to back it up so I asked Vicki for it . Thanks Vicki . Read as follows

In [email protected], "Mary Jo Fines" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Why does it affect the milk?

The chemical stimulus for udder development prior to freshening

comes from
the placenta and the effect is really important in the first-

freshener who
is developing an udder for the first time. The placenta has the

genetics of
the fetus - half from the dam and half from the service sire. This

has been
researched and known in dairy cattle breeding for many years.

Sometime in
the '80s David Funk in New York tested it out in his herd. He bred

sets of
twin and triplet doelings to very dairy bucks and to bucks with low

genectic
potential for milk production, for their first freshening. His

results were
published in DGJ and DGG. There were charts showing that the

sisters bred to
the dairy bucks had higher peak production and sustained a better

lactation
curve than the does bred to the non-dairy bucks. If I remember

correctly,
the does bred to non-dairy bucks didn't even average 10-month

lactations. He
carried the experiment on to the second freshening and found that

the effect
of the non-dairy buck on the initial udder development carried

through to
subsequent lactations. Does bred to dairy bucks the first time and

non-dairy
bucks the second time still had higher peaks and sustained

lactation than
the does bred to a non-dairy buck the first time and a dairy buck

for the
second lactation.

MJ

Mary Jo Fines - [email protected]
WebNanny Designs: http://webnanny.net
Silver Hill Alpines: http://webnanny.net/SILVERHILL


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

OH golly!!!   

Maybe I'll just get emus. How much milk do they give? :no:


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## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

Couple more things with the post above, you can find similar scientific paper for dairy cattle in Hoards and embarssingly enough back in the 80's the swiss bred dairy goats where bred to Nubians  at the time the breed with the least amount of milk  

Why I wouldn't do it, is that you are breeding a doe who is genetical predisposed to make meat not milk, so she is not going to do either as efficiently as her parent. It will take more grain, and more hoof trimming  to get less milk from a dairy goat than a cross of any boer.

Now Gary has shown us some remarkable information of Kiko's, not only motherablitly but milkability without the extra teat issue.

Remember how small the genepool was with the original boers, this inbreeding, the poor quality first crosses (the folks here in Texas bought anything and everything to breed to these first bucks) are where this problem came from, a problem that was then written into a breed standard. 

My daughters BF was from Nigeria, when his mom visited our farm she snickered about the udder problems our Boer's had, hey do not naturally have extra teats in her area. The animals where worth way to much money for any culling for the genetic fault.

If I was going to breed crosses for meat again, I would go LaMancha/Boer or I would look into the Kiko's. Vicki


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## Patty0315 (Feb 1, 2004)

Well lets see since Emus lay eggs I don't think they give milk , but I would love to see a video of you trying :haha: . All the goats stuff really isnt that confusing .


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

I could discuss the genetics of cockatiels and Indian ringneck parrots all day without hardly having to think. These placental mammals are confussing me though. So you're saying that if I breed a boer buck (boers being meat animals and not milk animals) to a nubian doe that the half boer fetus attached to the placenta will affect the quality and quantity of milk that the nubian mother produces???

Weren't nubians and boers orginally developed from the same types of goats from Africa, like with the pygmys and N.dwarfs, one being developed and improved for meat and the other for milk?


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## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

I have the book Nubian History, if you could see the foundation type stock that Nubians orginated from, and then see my gals, you would laugh....then seen the winner of the United Kingdom (same originating Nubians) Nationals, and go...are these the same goats? Their very best doe could not enter the ring, be cut at the gate in our shows, because we have all taken our goats in a different direction. Their emphasis is milk, with no emphasis put on body. So you see these long tall leggy, weak in the chine, does with poor attachments, in comparison to what we breed here. But in what we breed here, we are breeding with our incurving of the rear leg, a weaker leg, with our level rump we also breed in kidding difficulties, but boy are they beauties.

So to your answer yes, there is a similarity of originating goats, one male type goat that could have gone Nubian or boer, but to say there are similarities past this...no. Big floppy eared goats is about as similar as you get with boer fullbloods and nubian purebreds, now got a boer purebred or cross??? I would say 99% of them originated from Nubians in Texas, so yes they are more Nubian appearing.

When I was first heard about this placental thing I also scoffed at it. Wasn't until I read the Hoard's Dairyman magazine up at the college that I believed it. With selling milk I need all the milk I can, not less, plus meat kids simply are unprofitable here, compared to registered Nubian kids sales. Vicki


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## TexCountryWoman (Jun 22, 2004)

Two comments:

I'm working with a Boer herd and a LaMancha herd and all that the future may hold in crossbreding, while also maintaining purebreds. The Lamanchas have an interesting genetic background and their relative "brand newness" makes them fun to work with and mold.

As a self-proclaimed scientist, I find the report of the placenta's genetic link to lactation extremely fascinating. I would love to get my hands on a copy.


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