Newbie question on Breeding

Ynmnav

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Can anyone point me to a guide which shows the dos and don'ts of breeding within a flock. We started with 3 goats last year and are now up to 12. Up until now, there is no inbreeding. But now we have half brothers and sisters except for one buck.

I want to find out if a buck with the same father can mate with the doe of the same father or not, trying make a chart for myself. I know that a father shouldn't mate with the daughter, but heard, the grandfather can mate with his grand daughter ?
 
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OneFineAcre

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Different people have different do's and don'ts. There is no right or wrong guideline.

You said "I know a father shouldn't mate with the daughter". Some people would agree with that some would disagree.
We had an accidental father daughter breeding once. Big healthy kid. Only issue was the sire's leg's were a little "posty" and the kid's were really "posty".

So what you are proposing is breeding half siblings. We've done it before. No health issues. Got all bucks so we didn't keep them.

Might or might not do it again.

We have kept a buck from one of our does for the purpose of breeding him back to his grandmother.
 

Amaggio

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OneFineAcre is right, everyone kind of has a different list and there's no true guide. In my opinion breeding fathers and daughters is a risk, but many do it without issue. You see, when you breed it's all about the genetics. Pardon the science lesson, but I'm sure you have seen what the DNA strand looks like, that spiral ladder. One side of the spiral is from the mother's genes and one side is from the father. The point is you want a diverse, but strong, set of genes in your herd. If you breed a daughter with her father there's a higher chance that there will be duplicate genes matching on those rungs because she shares half her genes with him. The Grandfather, on the other hand, has a more diverse set of genes from his Granddaughter. I found a website that really explains it well with a makeshift chart and everything. I found it very informative. ne thing I've learned about owning a farm/homesteading. People can tell you a lot and give you a lot of advise but their problems aren't your problems and there's really no right or wrong way, just the way that works for you. It's good to take in as much information as you can but in the end you'll find your own way. Don't worry too much about making mistakes, and I know when it comes to lives of our animals we obsess because we don't want our mistakes to cost them their lives. We've all made mistakes and the important thing is to learn from them.

https://www.omegafields.com/2013/10/01/goat-breeding/

Here's a quick quote:
"Inbreeding breeding animals that are closely related. The genetic effect of inbreeding is that it produces animals with genetic characteristics that are more fixed. Progress towards a certain “style” can be made more rapidly through inbreeding.
While good characteristics are fixed in fewer generations by inbreeding, bad characteristics are equally fixed, so inbreeding needs to be done very carefully with the purpose of selecting desired traits and culling out undesirable ones. Inbreeding can and will decrease size and vigor! It has also been found to cause loss of reproductive performance. Out crossing to another breeding line needs to be done at chosen intervals. Inbreeding is considered crossing mother to son, father to daughter, or full sister to full brother.

Line breeding is inbreeding where the relationship of the goats are kept as close as possible to an individual animal. For example, breeding a superior sire to his granddaughter or breeding half brother with a half sister who has the same sire.
Advantages to line breeding are the same as in inbreeding except you double up on selected characteristics more rapidly. Be on the look out for undesirable characteristics here also, but there will be less chance of it.

Crossbreeding or out breeding is crossing two unrelated animals that have characteristics that you want to introduce to your flock.
This is usually done between different blood lines or different breeds of goats. This type of breeding will produce a hybrid vigor.

Good luck with the breeding!
 

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