ND Genes
Message in a Bottle
January 29, 2007
Our periodic newsletter to all NDGenes members.
New Goats! New Breeds! - We received an email the other day from Jeanne Carson, of Inavale Farm fame. Jeanne is now breeding mini-dairy goats, and is very involved with the Miniature Dairy Goat Association. She asked us if we would consider including Miniature Dairy breeds in our database. We thought about it, and after asking that she help ND Genes out by sending in the Inavale herd information, we would be glad to do that - so we are. The Inavale information won't be here until summer, after she's done kidding her herd out, but we will be adapting the input forms to reflect the miniature breeds as well as Nigerians.
Why did we do that? First off, Mini's depend upon the Nigerian for their First generation, and we're eager to see which animals were used, why, and what effect they've had on the breeds. Secondly, we really want to bring the old herd information into NDGenes, and this is one way to get that started. We are very excited to see what this new information will tell us about goats in general, as well as the strength of the Nigerian's traits in building new breeds.
Kidding Reports - Now that the nation is deep into kidding season, we wanted to make sure that the litter reports were up and running. The input forms are ready to go, but the kidding searches aren't ready it. Dave anticipates having those ready very soon. As well as having the 145 day gestation calculator ready for use from NDGenes.com. Please, help make the kidding searches useful by entering your litters as they are "hit the ground." We are looking for litter size, gender breakdown, mortalities, ease of birthing, mutations, etc. There is a belief that certain mutations happen world wide, such as "buck years," or "monster years." We'd like to see how true those claims are. In addition, we are setting up a new feature for our member farms. If you have babies available from a certain litter, let us know, and we'll make note of that on kidding reports and on the upcoming Sales Page.
More on Milk - The graphs we posted last month have raised quite
a stir. Though we are not making a policy of interpreting the data we graph,
people seem to have seen the same trends we did. We aren't through though.
Dave has graphed the butterfat, protein and days in milk information for
those animals, and that information will be submitted to Ruminations and
perhaps to United Caprine News.
In addition, we are looking to present the one-day test information, but
finding a way to compare the two graphs is proving somewhat difficult. We're
not done trying though. We look forward to seeing how height relates to
those results as well. We'll let you know first, when that info is available.
See the logo at the top of the page? You are welcome to use it on your website to show your membership in NDGenes.com. This NDGenie logo will be used on any announcements or awards that we give out.
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are left at the door. Everyone is welcome, as long as they want to
promote the best for the goats and its industry. Information here
is available to all.
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