Is "two teats" the best answer?

 

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What is your ultimate goal?

Our goal is focused on  raising the maximum total weight of kids per dam. The more kids we can raise per doe and the heavier they are at weaning time, the better opportunity for more potential profits. Therefore the better a doe can raise multiple kids, the better she fits into our breeding program.

Why would the original statement have been made?

If you ask a breeder why two teats are best, the only honest answer they can give you is "that is what buyers are looking for". They do not have any justification other than it is neat. This may have come from breeders that were in the dairy goat business prior to raising boer goats. There is a difference between "clean structure" teats and "deformed" teats. A deformed teat is considered anything that is has multiple tips on a common teat. That could be a fishtail teat. Therefore any clean two-teat doe is better than one with deformed teats. There is little or no argument on this.

Is it the best answer today?

If current buyers are looking for the two-teated doe, you can't ignore it. If you are about to buy animals, you can't ignore this because you will be selling them or their kids at some time. The question gets to be "why are four separated teats bad?" This is not a freak of nature. This did not occur because of a side effect of some medicine. It is nature doing it and it is fairly common in goats. Is nature trying to tell you something. Four clean and separated teats are appropriate and valid according to all of the standards. The South African breeders were the original breeders to consider that four may be better than two.

Benefits of four vs two teats

  • Better nutrition for 3+ kids on Doe -You need to watch a doe with three kids trying to nurse. The doe generally wants all of the kids to nurse at the same time. She will gather them up and only allow them to start nursing when multiple kids are there. All three heads will push into the udder with only two of the kids getting any milk. The other one, normally the smaller and weaker, will be left out. After a few seconds of nursing, the doe will move away from the kids and this will generally leave one that did not get any nutrition. The weaker one will normally be the one left out each time and may not grow as fast or as healthy as the other two.
  • Newborn kids may find the teat earlier One of our biggest concerns after a kid has been born is how quickly will they find the mother's teat and start nursing. It is always frustrating watching a newborn kid looking for the teat because they are always looking too high. Now look at the picture to the right. It is a picture of a doe with four teats that have excellent separation and the teats are at different levels. This is a very beneficial characteristic because the newborn kids are more likely to find the upper teat before they will find the lower one. The sooner the kids can get the first milk, the better chance they will be healthy because that first milk, colostrum, is what gives the kids their first immunity protected that is passed on from the mother until their own immunity system develops around 3 months later.
  • Minimizes damage to Doe's teats when 3+ kids - We have recently noticed something that may be very important if our thoughts turn out to be true. Recently we had a Doe have her teats damaged from the kid nursing. The damage is raw areas around where the teat meets the udder. This comes from the teeth of the nursing kids.  The problem comes from the raw area possibly getting infected and/or getting mastitis. Also, the teats become so sore the mother doesn't want the kids nursing any more and they start becoming very poor from lack of nutrition. We have seen this before. The common thread between all of the times we have seen this is the Doe had three or more kids nursing her and the Does only had single teats. The possible reason for the damage to the teats is from the kids fighting to get a teat when there are not enough to go around for all of the kids. We took the latest Doe with this problem and isolated her from all of the kids. We took turns turning only two of the kids in to nurse at a time. The teats started to heal when this was done.  We believe that a Doe with single teats is more likely to have teat damage when they have more than two kids at a time. More than 30% of our Does have triples and they do very well if the dam doesn't have teat problems.

 The final comment is your requirement for two teated animals are being met many times by breeders clipping the "excess" teats. Look at some of the does you have purchased to see if there are some faint scars where some excess teats once were. This causes two problems in the future. The first problem is only the current excess teats were clipped and the genes are still the same. You did not really solve anything. The problem was only hidden. The second problem is clipping the excess teat weakens the wall and is more likely to have bulges in the teat or bag when the heavy pressure of the first milk comes in. (see picture to the right).  This can dramatically reduce the productive life of your "perfect two teated" doe. At consignment and production sales, don't just look to see if there are two teats. Look for the tale-tale scares also.

It is the best answer tomorrow?

When we attended the judges training taught by the South African breeders, they indicated there was a lot more improvement work to be done on the boer breed. I asked if that meant breeding them to be bigger. (bigger may not be better) They said "No, if you want to raise larger animals, raise cattle. The improvement work will be in improving the reproductive efficiency". Dr. Clair E. Terrill of the USDA maintains that the reproductive efficiency of goats  have a higher ceiling that can be achieved. He contends that the practical ceiling of each birth can be raised from two to four. This means that for a doe that kids three times in two years, they will have 6 additional kids. This may be the most dramatic opportunity for helping reach your goals in the future. Some people will say that having 4 kids is too tough on a doe. Others will say they had a doe that raised 4 with no trouble. The difference is your focus on breeding does that can handle the larger number better and moving the breeding program to better selection on the breeding herd.

Now, if the future will be more kids per doe, why would I want to be breeding for does with only two teats. That does not make sense. Cows have four teats and normally only have one calf but no one is trying to breed cows with only one teat. Look at pigs, dogs and cats. They all have a large number of teats to take care of the large number of babies.  There will be people read that and say it is stupid because pigs, dogs and cats have a lot more babies than goats do. It is more common for a goat to have triplets than a single and goats are already having quads occasionally . Some goats are naturally having four teats and breeders are trying to breed it out of them.  Maybe they don't really know what they are doing and maybe those judges checking bucks teats don't understand what they are doing. I do not contend that we know what we are doing but we are asking the major question....WHY & WHY NOT? What has been harmed with a doe having four teats AS THE STANDARDS ALLOW. The problem is the in-between of two and four and that is a breeding program issue.

Doe with four separated teats well prepared to give the MAXIMUM nutrition to EVERY kid EVERY meal

Left Side

Right Side

 Right now, many breeders long range breeding plan looks no longer than one breeding season for the next kids they can have and sell. The goal of serious breeders should be longer term and target to improve the breed and the opportunity to make a profit. That goal can't have a focus on "if the nose has a roman shape or if there may be too much red in a patch in the wrong place". The standards of the boer associations are giving you no help or guidance in understanding the relative value of the boer characteristics. There is nothing to let you know that the shape of the nose is more or less valuable than the shape of the teats. If you breed your animals to have a better roman nose or more feminine look, how does that help you in achieving your goal. Eventually, the boer goats will have to justify their prices according to the amount of meat they produce.

Our objective to to focus on both two and four teated animals. We have does with two teats and we have does with four teats. We can respond to the people that have to have two teats but we can breed for what we believe will be the next wave of customer requirements once they stop to ask the real question ---"why two teats rather than four?"