Several Rear Ends

You really should take a gooooood look at your goat’s rump.

Although it sounds strange, many new goat keepers and breeders don’t realize the hind end of a goat matters a lot!

Shelene Costello wrote this short, well illustrated article to show you just what to look for in your goat’s behind.

The article explains and demonstrates just how important your goat’s hind assembly is. You’ll learn why the rump structure in a goat makes all the difference in her soundness, her ability to carry and deliver kids easily, and even in her udder carriage.

Ready to learn more? Check out the article here at the Dairy Goat journal!

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Click on the links below to see how the little Kinder goat fared against other breeds for use as  meat goats. The results may surprise you!

Way to go, James and Emily

Kinder Study page 1

4H Kinder Study

Here are three of the kids used in the comparison study:

Dairy Cross

Boer

Kinder

Knowing what to look for in a goat can help you decide which goats will help improve your herd…and which goats might need to leave. Even if you just want to buy a few does for milk, once you know what to look for your ‘goat shopping’ will be easier.

See that doe on the left? She has a very steep rump.

The kinder goat breeders have been blogging for the whole month of August about  just what makes a good Kinder goat.

If you head over to the Kinder Communique Blog you’ll learn what to look for in udders, rear ends, top lines and much more…and you’ll learn why steep rumps are a problem.

Current Kinder Goat Breeders Association president Sue Huston has done a wonderful job sharing her photos and information with us.  Head on over to the blog, check out Sue’s pictures and comments. You just might learn a thing or two.

I did!

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You will notice that many of the posts here are oldies but goodies, but the good news is they are still very relevant!

We moved all the posts from the old blog to this new site and we’ll be adding more material for you as time, chores, and milking permits!

Nina Helps With the Laundry

Now if only we could get her to hang it up rather then pull it all off…

Here is an informal barn photo of her.

A photo of her rear udder,

Anouk's Foreudder

At the time she was carrying 5.9# of milk.

She is a first generation doe, age 5 years, and has given birth to 9 kids in 4 kiddings (1 buck, 8 does).

She is also super easy to milk! Nice to have it all in one package!

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Well, of COURSE I do!

These are actual ‘parturition’ or birth photos, so don’t look at the pictures if you have a weak tummy.

View this three part series of a Kinder Doe giving birth:

A Kinder Parturition

A Kinder Parturition Part 2

A Kinder Parturition ~ Part 3

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A Very Virile Buck- Napoleon

Kinder bucks are not sterile.

If that were true I wouldn’t panic every time a buck got loose with the does.

Kinder boys can be used for breeding just like any other buck and they do all the same gross things other bucks do, too.

Like peeing on themselves. Yes, they will urinate all over their beards, and the backs of their front legs. Evidently the aroma makes them simply irresistible to the ladies. Like many other animals they also do the front lip raise known as a “flehmen response” or reaction.

I can never get the bucks to do it on command…so this water buffalo is demonstrating instead.

See the upper lip? Flehmen.

So now you know Kinder Goat bucks are not sterile.

I’m glad you asked, since other people may be wondering too!

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The first thing you will want to decide if you are thinking about getting into Kinders is if you want to start your own herd with already existing Kinders from somebody else’s herd or if you want to work on your own blood lines (we call this “starting from scratch”.) These are the first decisions that you will need to make.

The advantages that I see to making your own herd are these:

1# You will control the bloodlines and the health of the herd (but only if you have verified the health status of your ‘starters’). You will have the satisfaction of having “raised up” the goats the way you want them to go, choosing which qualities to keep and which to cull for. You will have an easier time controlling the health of the herd and raising the kids with CAE prevention.

#2 Hopefully, you will avoid working with other peoples culls, if you start out with handpicked, excellent stock.

If you can, go looking for quality breeding stock from serious breeders who have some understanding of what it means to breed goats. These breeders should be taking care of their animals, hoof trimming, feeding properly, have good housing and in general look and act like responsible goat people. When talking with them ask about how they care for their animals and ask in particular if they have disease testing.

You may even make the sale conditional on the results of the blood tests. Ask if how long they milk their goats and for the Nubians if they participate in showing, DHI, or record information about their lactations. Sometimes this isn’t always an option that we have. If the only genetic stock that is within a reasonable distance has a known health problem then you will have to decide what to do. Go for it and use the utmost precautions? Or avoid completely? I guess it all depends on how well you think you can handle a CAE prevention program or deal with any of the other contagious diseases. Understand that some of those diseases can infect your property for a long time (such as soremouth and CL.)

There are several disadvantages to starting your own herd. First of all, it will be a while before you actually get any “Kinders.” You will have to go through the steps of getting the different generations and breeding them down, so to speak, and this takes time. Also, inherently you will have more animals to keep and care for in the first 5 or 10 years. There are possibilities of having serious faults in some animals when combining the Pygmy and the Nubian blood lines. You may need to spend more money on breeding stock at first to get the higher quality goats with the best breed traits. But even if you have to pay more at first, you may be happier and more satisfied with your end result. I’d like to discuss a few of the pro’s and cons I mentioned earlier.

#1. Controlling the bloodlines.
The quality of the Nubians and Pygmies that go into the herd is obviously going to effect every resulting Kinder. It is very important that you buy the best quality base stock that you can afford. First of all you should look for goats that have excellent mammary systems (on the Pygmy side too) long lactations, and healthy conformation. The Nubian and Pygmy Goat breed standards are your guides.

Yes, that means you need to search out breeders who pay attention to this. Buy from responsible breeders who test and cull for disease and use CAE prevention to raise their blood stock. For your financial investment, you will want to protect yourself and your herd, so do be aware of the health status of both sets of animals. Blood testing is not a fool proof tool but it is a very good starting point. Talk to a vet about it or to experienced breeders.

On the pygmy side you should also look for the ability to raise their own kids since few Pygmies have their lactations noted, and if they have any faults like double teats (often Pygmy breeders ignore this) or cryptochorids (male goats with testes retained within the body cavity) or severe conformational problems. You must try and get a good quality buck; use one that is as close to the Pygmy breed standard as possible. Pay special attention to strong and square legs, wide escutcheon and level rump. It is a good idea to take a look at the udders on his mom, sisters and daughters. (This is true for both dam and buck, but I’m mentioning this for the buck in particular because he is going have a major effect on the total quality of the offspring.) Tall bucks are o.k.

#2 Exercise your option to cull.

By cull, I do mean kill. I do not mean finding the goats anything other than a “no-breeding, pet- only” home. Generally, culling and selling needs to be done about every two years in order to keep improving the herd, by removing the animals that are not moving you in the right direction. Also, it keeps alive the other purpose we have for our Kinder’s, which is to provide goat meat. This is probably the hardest thing for new breeders to learn. It also keeps you from becoming overwhelmed with too many goats.

Have in your mind a picture of what you want your Kinder goats to look like and to milk like. Compare the Kinder’s you breed with your “ideal Kinder.” How do they compare? Are they much worse or better? Breed towards your goal rather than randomly breeding animals. This is easier to say than to do especially when working with a small genetic pool. However, it can be done by line-breeding with careful out-crossing. Your ideal Kinder should look as much like the breed standard as is possible. It’s good to study the standard to know what to look for in your animals.

Bucks are more than half of your herd.

Because they influence an entire generation of your Kinders it is very important to not breed from a faulty buck. Once you have Kinders to work with, choose the best buck that you have for your herd sire and breed from him. From there you can choose your junior herd sire from your best doe. You may choose to let a buck mature for a year or more before you use him over your herd. See how the junior herd sire develops and then you can begin to match him to other does. Sometimes genes will combine badly and sometimes there will be wonderful results. Always take careful note of what happens during a breeding and how close to the standard the resulting offspring are. Try and keep complete records as you go and even take pictures of the animals you breed, and the resulting kids.

Learn to enjoy goat meat for you will have to cull in the early years at least a little. But that’s the wonderful thing about Kinders. They make excellent meat as well as milk! It most areas of the country there are very few Kinder herds established so far. This means that there is an excellent opportunity for a new breeder to come in and get a head start on future breeders.

Paying attention to the breed standard and having a goal to work towards will put you one step ahead by the time it comes to start selling quality breeding stock to future Kinder owners in your local area. Grow your herd slowly so that you can practice “quality control” to have healthy goats you can enjoy as meat, excellent quality milk and as pets.

It seems to me that humans are very worrisome folk.

I had freshened twice before this and had raised two lovely little broods — one of three and the other of four. You see, I’m a Kinder (and indeed very proud to be one) and multiple births tend to run in my honorable breed. Another thing significant about Kinders is that they are known for their ease of kidding. Well, as I say, humans are very worrisome folk.

They first became alarmed the day I was bred. On that day they introduced two new goats to our cage and the four of us went through the routine status-placing rituals of head-butting and the like. Anyway, by the time they were ready to take me to the buck, I was feeling rather dizzy, it being a very hot summer day and all.

Well, they put me in a cage with this little tyke — one of last year’s kids they said — and to me it seemed that such a short little whipper-snapper would not suit me well enough. But, he was very nice by way of conformation and I’d heard say that he wouldn’t take milk away, which was something I was very grateful for, being, as I am, very proud of my heavy production and 8% butterfat. At any rate, I was quite willing to put up with him, but my head! It ached so from all the head-butting going on! The world began to spin around me and then I stumbled and fell! I tried to stand up, but my knees kept buckling out from under me and it seemed that the whole world was spinning at an alarming speed! And that silly buck! He paid absolutely no heed to my awkward predicament!

The humans who were there with me — you know, the lady and her oldest girl — they panicked. I heard them say something about heat stroke and then they began spraying me with cold water. Well, anyway, that was five months ago and I’ve been quite well since then.

Now the humans were getting panicky again. My tail head was fully dropped, my cords had disappeared and I had drastically lost my appetite, not to mention the opaque discharge that made them think I was in labor 15 days early. Of course I knew that I wasn’t in labor, but they paid no heed to me when I tried to reassure them.

They put me in this pen filled with straw and even though I was comfortable, I really missed my friends. The days passed and it seemed that those humans had nothing better to do than sit around and watch me. I sort of liked being the center of attention, but I was feeling sooo big and walking was a big chore indeed. Of course I knew the reason, but I could never make those humans understand.

On a Friday, six days before my due date, the oldest girl and a few of the younger ones stayed down with me all day. They said I was breathing “funny”, and indeed, I had a good reason to! The babies had never seemed so active and the load pressed heavily against my lungs, making me take funny little panting breaths. I tried to tell them that I wasn’t in labor, but my cries seemed only to excite them more. Finally I gave up and went to sleep. It was well past suppertime when they left.
Next day, they came down to milk much earlier than usual and when they tried to see if I was in labor, I was too sleepy to tell them that today was going to be the day. They left right away too — fancy them leaving me at a time like this! Of course, they couldn’t know that this was going to be the biggest day of my life and that it would always stand out in their memories too.

I just wasn’t feeling myself and I tried calling them, but they must not have heard me. I heard them saying later that they were at a 4-H Presentation Day, or something of the sort.

Finally, the big moment came — it was time to push! The humans still weren’t there, but I tried to reassure myself by reminding me that I had done this many times before. The first kid came and I began to clean him up. Another one came, and then another and another. There were six kids in all and each one was as cute as you please. I loved each one dearly and cleaned them up and helped them find the milk that would be essential in keeping them healthy.

At last the humans came. The little one came first and she ran to call the two bigger ones. “Lissy kidded!” I heard her call. “She has two babies!” Now, wherever did she get that idea, I wondered, because, of course, I knew the truth.

They came running and the older girl jumped into the pen.”They’re awfully tiny for just two” she said excitedly as she approached me. Then she saw the two that were lying by my other side. “She did have more than two! She had four!” In time, she found the fifth one and boy, was she excited! “She tied the record! She tied the record!” they said in evident excitement. Just then Jr., the oldest of my small brood, came around the corner and then everything happened at once. They started dipping cords, and than do you know what those humans did? They took them away! Just like that, can you believe it?!

I’ve seen them several times since then and they are doing fine and getting big. The humans are still real excited about it and they treat me like a queen. I’ve heard tell that the highest recorded birth is five and yet, even I , an humble Kinder broke that record. I have a hard time believing it myself, but I am filled with a noble pride that I was able to bring such a good name to my breed, my family, and…my humans.”Yes, they’re ALL mine!’

Melissa Kelly…and Alyssum
Gloryland
Santa Maria, CA

(NOTE: As it happened, Alyssum tied the record – did not break it.)

Note: Zederkamm Sweet Alyssum’s 1998 breeding was so successful that she was re-bred to Zederkamm Karnival for a late January 1999 kidding. Alyssum’s DHIR for her first lactation was 1,370 lbs in 305 days as a yearling. Her butterfat average was 7.36% and her high, 9.2%. Protein average was 4.84% and high was 6.0%. Her 1998 kidding record is being verified by Guinness Book as the largest, recorded live litter.

I thought that this might be helpful to new people who are trying to decide which Kinders they keep and which they send on their way.

What it gets down to is that a breeder has to make tough decisions along the way to keep their herd in an improvement mode. I try to balance out the traits that I want to see in my herd, but then my final cut comes down to ease of milking.

I milk by hand and want to keep it that way, so sometimes even a doe that is near perfect in every other way will get cut because she isn’t easy enough to milk. What I often do is keep a daughter to see if I see the improvement that I want, and sometimes it works. Here’s one of the more important traits to pay attention to:

Good Mammary Attachments are extremely important for Kinder does because they are short girls, and that makes their udders more prone to injury.

Zederkamm Floribunda

This photo gives a pretty good view of Flori’s udder — notice that her foreudder extends smoothly into her belly with no pocket. Her teats had a slight curve, and that’s what kept her from having an even higher score.

Floribunda is the best doe that I have had so far, and she was a first generation, so it is hard to improve from that point. I can’t take much credit for her exceptional quality either, since all I did was choose a nice Nubian and a handsome Pygmy! What I keep trying to do is to reach those heights again. When she received her 94 mammary score from Harvey Considine, he said he had only given that score to a very few goats over his years as a livestock evaluator. She still scored 94 as a 7 year old. That year (2001) her mammary score was equaled by a younger Zederkamm doe, Penny’s Lily-of-the-Valley (3rd generation), but her overall score was a couple of points lower. She ended up producing 2080# of milk on her best lactation and broke the butterfat record for Kinders at 140#.

Maintaining the mammary attachments is the hardest thing for a Kinder doe to accomplish. Because they have smaller frames, but not necessarily smaller udders, there is less structure to attach to for support. A small goat giving a gallon or better a day carries a lot of weight in her udder, and over time, those attachments are stretched. Flori weighed about 130# at age 7, and averaged 8.1 pounds per day over her 305 day lactation. She had a daughter, Fleur, who did inherit her mother’s tight attachments and heavy milk production, but she had teats too small for my comfort, so I didn’t keep her past her 2nd lactation. On that second lactation she produced 2190# of milk in 305 days — and she weighed only 85 pounds herself. She was producing 10% of her body weight in milk daily at the peak of her lactation! Her attachments were so snug that it was not obvious that she carried so much milk.

As I continue breeding for those excellent attachments, my success has been mixed.

Excellent udder attachment is still one of the more elusive traits to try to pair with heavier milk production, but it is definitely worth the challenge!

Pat Showalter