Your Source for Kinder Goats

by Jo from Laudo Deum Farm

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 your 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 your herd. Because they influence an entire generation of your Kinder’s it is very important to not breed from a faulty buck. Once you have Kinder’s 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.