What is a characteristic culling fault?

Question

I'm looking up Kiko goats on a website and it's got a section with the heading 'Characteristic Culling Faults' so I was just wondering what they were.

Answer 1

The biggest mistake one can make when culling is to use the "snapshot" method, meaning you go by how the animal looks, acts, appears, etc on today only rather than keeping detailed records.  

I'll give you several examples.  People want animals that are easy keepers, in other words, they stay fat without being fed grain or super quality hay or forages.  Today you decide to cull all animals (cattle, sheep, goats, ect) that are skinny and you keep the fat ones because you assume they're easy keepers.  Without detailed birth records, the skinny ones may be the ones that had twins, produce the most milk and have the biggest, fattest offspring and the fat animals may be the ones that never gave more than a teacup of milk their entire life and every year their offspring starves to death.  They're fat because they're not working.

Say you decide to cull all does or ewes that have singles and keep those that have twins.  My experience has been that the majority of animals that are pregnant during the hot summer will have singles when they lamb/kid in October-December, but when those same animals are bred later in the season, are pregnant during cooler weather and lamb in March-June, they will have twins and triplets.  Hot weather and poor pastures during conception have more to do with multiple births than anything.

Another thing is to select animals that fit your operation, not what the showring demands or what your neighbor does.  The showring wants lambs that are shaped like a Dachshund dog, but I've found those animals will starve to death when forced to make it on poor quality pastures.  However, ewes with big, barrel shaped bellies can process large amounts of coarse, low quality forages and will stay fat doing it.          

Answer 2

It is an undesirable trait that renders an animal unfit to breed because it may pass this trait along to it's offspring.  Most registries set breed standards, and if an individual animal fails to meet these standards (head shape, size, color) it should be culled.

Answer 3

I gave you an outstanding answer on your previous goat question a few months back..."Name six possitive and negative things about goat managment."

You deleted the question....to save points, I assume?  

I don't think you are actually doing research on Kiko goats.  I think you are looking for easy answers to homework questions.

So, since Kiko goats are a meat goat what does common sence tell you their culling faults should be?  By the way, do you know what culling is?  It means taking that goat out of the breeding herd, and having it killed for faults.

Poor meat/bone ratio

Poor teeth

Poor parasite resistance

Poor mothering abilities

Not producing and raising twins

Poor hooves

Poor/slow growth of kids

Poor heat tollerance

Too large a cleft in the buck's testicals

Not producing enough milk

Needing help with kidding

Poor foraging ability

Too agressive

Too stupid

Too fearful

Poor general health

Pnuemonia

Males should be masculine

Females should be feminine

And this is personal choice of the farmer...I cull for goats that are too agressive about jumping fences.  Just two months ago, I butchered a GORGEOUS buck, because he was a very agressive fence jumper, despite high woven wire, and electric.  He was teaching younger goats to do the same.  Now that he is gone, I have zero problems.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Raising meat goats since 1999

  

A roman nose is a fault found ONLY in the artificial world of the show ring.  Whether a Kiko meat goat does, or does not have a roman nose, has ZERO bearing on it's mothering, birthing, breeding, or foraging abilities.  It's rather like saying, "Well if only Bill Gates had a bigger nose, he would have earned a lot more money for Microsoft."

I gave you the reality based culling faults of a true Kiko meat goat.  I did not mention the arbitrary, based on looks, faults of Kiko goats in the show ring.

Kiko goats are decendants of Alpine type breeds, therefor should not have a Roman Nose for the show ring.  In a true meat goat herd, a roman nose would have zero bearing.