# Can you breed a brother to a sister or a half sister.



## Goat Freak

I know that I have told people that you can't, but just found out that the guy that told us that you can't has ALREADY lied to us, and that he is a major P-head. I would like to hear PREFERABLY from people that HAVE registered babies were the mother was the sister/half sister to the babies father, were the babies registered normally WITHOUT something like INCEST on their papers? I feel REALLY silly asking this, I can't BELIEVE that that guy lied to us  . Thank you in advance for any help/replies. Bye.


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## chamoisee

The answer is YES, you can breed very close relatives. I've done quite a bit of it. Sometimes, the goats have minds of their own and they get bred when you didn't want them to. 

The question is, do you want such breedings? It depends. 

A close breeding can, despite what you are going to hear, be extremely useful in a way that is almost impossible to achieve otherwise. You can find out an awful lot about an animal's true genetic worth (their genotype) as opposed to their outward physical appearance, which can be very impressive (or, opn the other hand, not look like much at all) in a deceptive way, by breeding that animal to a close relative, such as a daughter (if the animal is a buck) or a son (if a doe). In the case of a buck, it is worthwhile to breed him to a number of does to get the widest possible picture of what he has to offer- you can't make a safe assumption based on just one or two offspring, even when they're inbred. 

Examples from actual experience: 

I have a buck, Reflex. I am extremely happy with him. He himself is strongly linebred. I used him on several of his daughters in order to find out his true strengths and faults and what he could reliably throw, what to avoid breeding him to, etc. I frequently don't keep kids from yearling does anyway, so it wasn't a waste at all. The results: double daughters have lots of width between the hocks, high escutcheons, pretty heads, and almost always black, like him. They tend to be stylish and good quality does, but sometimes, especially if the yearling's dam was very dairy, the double offspring are too fine-boned. 

I have had other inbred offspring (not Reflex's) that had a long upper jaw (parrot mouth), showing that the buck himself had this tendency, and were extremely hocky (a trait that the buck had himself, but not as badly). Inbreeding highlights and exaggerates what is already in the buck (or whoever youre inbreeding on) and makes it easier to see. No animal is perfect, and it's good to be aware of the weaknesses inherent in a line so that you can breed accordingly.

And yes, you can register them normally if both parents are registered. The papers don't say incest, linebreeding isn't that stigmatized, not as it is in humans.


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## Goat Freak

I know that you can breed a father to a daughter and a son to a mother, we have done both this year, but what I mean is can you breed a SISTER and a BROTHER and everything still be normal. The reason I ask this is because we have a FANTASTIC buckling that was born just a month ago, but he is related to most of the females in a brother/sister way. We REALLY want to keep him, he is a MARVELOUS looking boy, at just one month old he already looks like a champ, thick neck, big body, VERY good looking, and he is already going for the ladies, he is too short right now though. like I said, we REALLY want to keep him, but we need to be able to breed him to enough of the females to feel that it is worth it, I think that he is worth it, but heah that is just me. Thank you for replying, bye.


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## commomsense

I would never breed A brother to a sister or half sister.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


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## APPway

To breed Brother to sister really does no good as you can not better the line as it will double up on the bad faults as well as the good. Most breedings are father daughter, Mother son not brother sister. Half sister breedings are done in all livestock but most know the faults they are able to get.

APPway


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## Goat Freak

I know, at least we can still keep him to breed to some of our Cozmo daughters, that is once Cozmo decides to ACTUALLY BREED a female, he is only around 6 months old and does not know what to do yet, bummer cause he is REALLY pretty. I just wanted to know because my dad would like to be able to breed this guy with as many of our girls as possible, he is SO handsome. Oh well, maybe I can talk my parents into keeping him anyway, my paretns REALLY like this little guy so it MIGHT be possible. Thank you for your replies, bye.


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## chamoisee

Why not do this: breed all the does related to the fantastic buckling to Cozmo this year, and breed Mr. Fantastic  to everyone else. Or, breed everyone in the herd to Cozmo. Either way, next year, breed Mr. Fantastic to all the kids that are not his direct offspring, as well as to the does he could have bred this year. In other words, he would be breeding the offspring of his half sisters. That is close enough to maintain consistency but not too close.

Personally, especially if these are Boers, I wouldn't be too squeamish about breeding him to half sisters, but I would avoid breeding to the full sisters, if there are any. Full brother-sister can be done in very specialized cases, but I wouldn't do it except for very special reasons. I will say this: when you inbreed, you _have_ to be willing to cull out the faults, however appealing or cute the kids are otherwise. If you can bring yourself to cull as needed, and to look at the kids with an objective eye, then go ahead and try it. But if you're counting on keeping every doeling born unless she's obviously deformed, then don't inbreed. 

More on brother sister inbreeding: we had two dogs who were full siblings that ended up having puppies together (not intentional on our part). The puppies were all normal and nice, but they were all smaller than the lines usually ran. And---> there are two guys in our town whose parents are brother and sister, and their parents are also the product of full sibling matings! In other words, brother + sister = one girl, one boy, and then those two had two sons together. The two boys are both slow and mentally impaired, but to be fair, the parents don't seem that promising, either.


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## Rachel K.

I have a question on this subject too. I currently one two Goats. A Wether and a Doe. This spring I will be getting a Oberhasli Doe in milk production and a Oberhasli Buckling (not related to the oberhasli doe). The Oberhasli Buck will be bred to both Does each fall. My question being is what would happen if I decided to keep a Young Doe kid from either Trixie or the other Doe? Can she be bred back to her Father without any problems? I would not be keeping any of the kids out of her as I don't want to go over board with the inbreeding. What are your thoughts on this?


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## chamoisee

It won't hurt the doe to be bred back to her sire, if that's what you mean. The only harm that can be done is that any faults that the sire has might be accentuated in the offspring. Personally, I would keep at least one double daughter until she freshens just to ascertain what sort of udder traits the buck can be relied upon to throw. 

Contrary to all the hype i've heard about inbreeding, the worst results I've ever seen in goats have been: bad parrot mouth, apparently less intelligent/dull witted, very hocky or posty, double teats (inbreeding is a *great* way to find out in a hurry if a buck is carrying the gene for extra teats), and in what was possibly the worst case (one buck showed up four times in the pedigree) the male offspring was very lacking in libido and I had a very hard time getting him to breed the does. He was an extremely _consistent_ animal though- his kids were like peas of a pod almost in spite of what the dams looked like.


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## Rachel K.

I'm just worried that the Kids from the Father Daughter breeding will be retarded or something. I don't plan on keeping any of those kids and plan on selling them but I don't want them to have anything wrong with them.


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## moonspinner

Many top experienced breeders mate parent to offspring with successful results. The plus about this as Chamoisee mentioned is you will see the genetics of that line much more clearly. Breeding back to the grandparents is quite common . I think the results of these close ties, as a general rule aren't as devastating as the perception of them. Breeding siblings to me just doesn't make any sense, though I have bred half siblings. The more experience you have, the smarter decisions you can make in this area.


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## Goat Freak

Rachel, you CAN breed fther to daughter, and son to mother, we did both this year, and the kids produced are FANTASTIC, the little buck that we want to keep is from a father/daughter breeding, his mama is a pretty girl as well, and his daddy is AWESOME, so he is a REALLY good looking boy. 

By the way, Chamoisee, Thank you so much, I htink that we will be able to keep him now, it makes since to breed him to Cozmo's daughters anyway, Cozmo is a red with paint/two teated/red genetics, and has a BIG dad, and if we add Frankie's (Mr.Fantastic's) genes in as well the kids produced would be AWESOME. Thank you SO ,uch, by the way, now I want to register him as Mr. Fantastic, he would still be reffered to as Frankie at home, but I think that Mr. Fantastic suits his personality and looks better, at least for what goes on paper. Once again Thank you SO much, you have been SUCH a big help, thank you. Bye.


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## dbarjacres

MANY people breed half brother to half sister, some even do fulls, but halfs seem very common. If it's crap stock to start with, you're gonna get definate crap stock out of it, but if it's good stock, they are hoping to improve on them or intensify the "goodness" of them. I have a set of boer papers on my desk right now that's half brother to half sister 2 gens. back. Our first female german shepherd was VERY intensely linebred thru her mom, in 3 generations there was only like 5 different dogs, her mom was a completely aggressive psycho, but our girls' dad was a wonderful Belgian bred dog and our girl took after him, altho out of each litter we had one heart murmur, so that could be related, but who knows. My appaloosa mare has a great pedigree, her mom is a reg. Quarter Horse, who goes back to the thorobred Three Bars 4 times, so that would be linebreeding there too. If you have a bad genetic trait, it is more likely it can come thru tho, so to know what you are doing, or the lines you are going to cross is good.

Chamoisee, that's really NASTY about those people! One generation of that as bad enough, but two!? ewwww...


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## Goat Freak

Thank you for your reply dbarjminis, all of you are SO helpful. And yes, doing that with your brother/sister is SO GROSS, of course I guess that for the seconed time they figured, what the heck my parents did it! Still that is UNBELIEVABLY gross, I did not know that people still do that? Well once again thank you for your reply. Bye.


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## chamoisee

> by the way, now I want to register him as Mr. Fantastic, he would still be reffered to as Frankie at home, but I think that Mr. Fantastic suits his personality and looks better, at least for what goes on paper. Once again Thank you SO much, you have been SUCH a big help, thank you. Bye.


LOL...I called him that mainly because you said that he was "fantastic".  I'm glad you like it! 



> Chamoisee, that's really NASTY about those people! One generation of that as bad enough, but two!? ewwww...


Yeah...What is really sad is that the whole town knows about it and nearly everyone has a bad attitude about the boys, and it isn't even their fault or choice! They can't help it if they're slow or that their parents did that... Can you imagine trying to live something like that down? I guess maybe it's sort of a blessing that they're slow.... :/


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## allenslabs

Depends on what state you're raised in........ Kentucky yes....... california.....no! HAHA!! Tehee! I just had to toss that one out there......... it's a family joke around here as my grandpa was born and raised in KY. HAHA!!


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## waltseed

Any good genetics book should tell how to calculate the degree of inbreeding given an acurate pedigree. 
Slightly more advanced genetics books should show how to calulate the average degree of inbreeding in a randomly breeding population.
These only require high school algebra.
Father-daughter, mother-son, and full sister-full brother crosses give equal degree of inbreeding, assuming these animals have the same degre of inbreeding to start with.
While there are formulae to calculate the degree of inbreeding, a book can't tell you how much inbreeding is optimum. That depends on the quality of the animals involved.


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## Goat Freak

Thank you, now I just need to tell my dad ,and it looks like we are goin to keep him, although I will first try telling him about the breeding with Cozmo's daughters, that way we can still keep Yohaan, my dad was suggesting getting rid of Yohaan to keep Frankie, but I think that he would let us keep both. Once again, thank you. Bye.


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## goatkid

I have bred half brothers and sisters with no problems, but would not breed full siblings. This year, I have 2 doelings I am breeding back to their father, but only because their mom and dad are not related. This is the best choice, I feel with the Nubian bucks that are available to me this year. If I keep a doeling from this breeding, I will need to buy or lease a new buck next year. ADGA will register the goats and doesn't put any comments on the goat's papers. A friend has what she refers to as a double daughter who is a champion. When you line breed or inbreed, what you need to remember is that you can either increase a goats assets or faults.


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## Goat Freak

Thanks!


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## dbarjacres

I can actually say I think I'll be doing this now too, Half brother to half sister. I found a lady w/in 5 hours with a couple beautiful mini lamanchas, what we really want to get into, but hard to find. She currently has a buck kid from this spring, his mom is mini mancha, only 12.5% lamancha, rest is nigerian, and his sire is a real nice TwinCreeks Nigerian. Mom is currently bred and due soon. She's bred to a completely different Nigerian buck, so I may buy a doe kid if she has one and the buckling also. The lady had planned on doing that herself, but health issues are changing her plan. I have no qualms doing this at all.


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## Goat Freak

Good luck! I wish you the best, bye.


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