2008 Resistance Update

We wrote an article in the summer of 2007 on Boer goats being a high maintenance breed and the need to make changes. (high maintenance article) We set a goal of improving our herd and our management techniques by 2010. One of those improvement objectives was to improve the genetics in our herd to be more resistant to stomach worms. This is our first report to show you a few of the "stars" coming from our "improving herd resistance to stomach worm" objective. Below are four examples of animals in our herd that have shown us amazing results from our monthly checks and documenting the health status of our herd. We are not saying we have developed or created genetics that are resistant to the stomach worm. We have IDENTIFIED existing genetics that have shown remarkable results in being resistant to the stomach worm.
Little Red Age 18 months old Never been wormed in her life and she constantly has some of the darkest pink eyelid membranes in our monthly check.She was born in our very wet year that caused so many worm problems across the country. She was the only kid raised by her mother. For the first three months, her mother and Little Red were placed with nine other does and their kids. Many of the other kids and does had bad worm problems. Little Red never showed any signs of worms. After three months, she was placed with the rest of the herd. Many of the other herd had worm problems but she never did.
Sidekick Age 18 months old Never been wormed in her life and she constantly has some of the darkest pink eyelid membranes in our monthly check. She was born in our very wet year that caused so many worm problems across the country. She was a bottle baby from the day she was born. For the first three months, she was in an area with several other bottle babies and young buck kids. Several of the buck kids in that area either died from worms or was hit very hard by them. Sidekick never showed any signs of worm problems. At three months old, she was put out with the main herd where other animals were having major worm problems but she never showed any signs of worms.
Sidekick and Little Red are sisters but for the first three months of their life, they were raised in different environments. Both environments had worm problems but neither of these girls ever showed any signs of worms. They never recognized that they were sisters so they did not hang around together in the pasture yet they both show the same resistance to worms. Their coat and body condition has always been outstanding, winter or summer. We believe this is a clear indication of genetics for worm resistance.
Miss Mandy Age 18 months Never been wormed in her life and she constantly has some of the darkest pink eyelid membranes in our monthly check. She was born in our very wet year that caused so many worm problems across the country. She was from a set of twins but she was one of our fastest growing doe kids in the herd. She was raised by her mother with her sister and was placed with nine other does and their kids for the first three months. After that her mother and she were moved out with the rest of the herd. Her sister was only wormed one time before she was sold.
White Socks Age 19 months Only wormed one time in her life and she constantly has some of the darkest pink eyelid membranes in our monthly check. She was born in our very wet year that caused so many worm problems across the country. This is another doe that has only shown signs of worm problems once but continually has a gorgeous, shiny coat and healthy body condition. Several of these doe kids show that you can get show quality animals by first focusing on the genetics for being worm resistant.
All four of the above does are being bred to one of our two new, young bucks that have also shown signs of resisting worm problems. Those bucks are War Dancer and Rolling Thunder. They can be seen on our congratulations page and the Breeding Bucks page. This will expand our research in determining what kind of kids we can get by breeding animals that both show worm resistant signs.
Royal Beauty Age 30 months old Has not been wormed in the last 14 months and we lost the records before that. A very important difference between Royal Beauty and the four does shown above is Royal Beauty had kids within the last 6 months but did not show any problems with worms. When a doe kids, that is their weakest time against worms and that is a very important test for how strong her genetics are against worms.
Although we have found several animals that have shown high resistance to the stomach worms, we still have many that require deworming too often. We don't know if the animals with worm resistance are getting that from their dam, their sire or just from a roll of the genetic dice. We don't know how long it will last, especially the does that have yet to kid for the first time. Some of the animals shown here have dam and/or sires that have not shown signs of being resistant. We need to see a new set of kids come from the dams of these animals to see if the new kids from a different buck will or will not show signs of being resistant to stomach worms. What we do know is breeders will have to change the way that they evaluate and determine what a good or cull animal is. If you want to get an improved herd that is more resistant to stomach worms, you can't be evaluating them according to what judges are looking for in the ring. We have had to define priorities on specific characteristics of our herd according to financial justification and not from a set of standards that everything is equal or just pleasing to the eye. We can focus on raising animals that are resistant to stomach worms that can be show quality but it will be very difficult to focus on raising show quality animals and end up with animals resistant to stomach worms.