I have to admit something, we just wrapped up our first round of kidding season (one round left) and we are already battling with our goat breeding planning for next year.
Has anyone else ever felt this pressure? We are all working hard to make the right breeding decisions to improve our herd, but WHAT should those decisions be?
Goat Breeding Planning: What Does It Look Like?
For real ya'll, getting your goats bred by identifying your goat heat signs and preparing for kidding season are both a piece 'o cake compared to deciding what doe should get paired with which buck.
There are so many factors to take into account what:
- traits are you trying to improve in your herd overall?
- type (and how heavy) of a line breeding will each pairing give?
- specific traits are lacking in your doe or buck that you want to make sure doesn't get carried on? Or that you want to improve on.
We can all use a good, solid go to reference when we make important decisions, right? And your goat breeding planning shouldn't be any different!
If you need all the details on goat breeding, check out the Ultimate Planner for Breeding Goats!
So, let's all sit back with a nice cup of coffee, some gluten-free apple pie or whatever your choice of focus food/drink is and let's review the best goat breeding planning tool you have at your fingertips!
Oh, did I forget to mention, it is FREE? There is one catch, your goats have to be registered with the ADGA. The site/tool is http://www.adgagenetics.org/.
The first thing you will want to do is go to the "Planning" section. Which you will see circled in red in the screenshot below:
On the planning page, you can test out potential pairs until your hearts content! Just type in the goats ID or their registered name for both the prospective sire and dam and click generate. Coming up with goat names, can be one of the most fun parts of raising goats.
The planning tool will show you the planned pedigree as well as any line breeding/inbreeding. You can see an example pedigree below.
So, you get all of the planned breeding pedigree information all in one spot with a general analysis of genetic contributors to the potential breeding.
If this isn't cool enough, all of those names/goats in the pedigrees you see listed there are direct links to those goats individual pages on the ADGA site.
If you aren't familiar with what you can find for each goat on the ADGA site:
- Pedigree
- Milk Production History (if they have been on milk test)
- Linear Appraisal History (if they have been appraised). This is great for looking at the specific traits on each goat in the potential breeding. And you can also see if those traits have carried down through the pedigrees.
- Progeny
- and so much more!
While you will still have to decide which pairing is best for your herd and your goals, this goat breeding planning tool from the ADGA really is a one-stop-shop for the background information you need to help make those important decisions.
Drop us a comment below and tell us if you will be using this tool for your breeding planning!
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