We made a terrible mistake/we're screwed
May 16, 2019 20:51:50 GMT -5
Shawn, elia, and 6 more like this
Post by serendipity on May 16, 2019 20:51:50 GMT -5
She has a large herd of about 75 and she said she had no time to milk goats she could not even catch.
This is not the management of a serious breeder. This is the goat equivalent of a puppy mill.
I looked up Keveva and Cayote on the ADGA website and neither they nor their dams have any milk test records. Looking back to their grand dams, one has a 0 PTA (Predicted Transmitting Ability) for milk production and the other three have -5, -11 and -31. PTA is expressed in pounds or score either positive or negative as compared to the average. An average PTA would be “0” neither transmitting the ability to milk more or less, or to have average final scores of more or less than average. So a milk PTA of -31 would mean that we expect daughters to produce 31 pounds of milk less than the average.
Obviously I don't know what you paid for them, but I would not consider these to have particularly good genetics from what I see on paper. Maybe they are amazing does in person. I just don't want you to judge the entire breed thinking you have girls on the higher end of the spectrum. You might, but they are more likely to be average or lower level milkers compared to the rest of the breed.
You definitely have an uphill battle on your hands if they were not milked for a week so huge kudos to you for getting them to start up again. I do hope you can get them producing to the level you need. And they will surely produce more for you next year if you are able to keep them and re-breed.
Nigerian Dwarves are an incredible dairy breed that can milk well over 1,000 pounds a year. Unfortunately there are a lot of pet breeders that have goats that only milk 400-500 pounds per year. That's fine for pets, but people who buy a doe bred to be a pet expecting it to be a milker end up having a bad experience and thinking all Nigerians are like that which is very sad for this amazing little breed.