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Looking for Volunteers to Participate in Evaluating Boer Does Productivity
I would like to see if there is any interest from some Boer breeders to help in evaluating the productivity of Boer Does in kidding and raising kids to weaning age. The animals can be show stock, breeding stock or commercial stock. However, they do have to be full blood animals. This will be somewhat similar to research that has been done at Tennessee State University. I am looking for breeders that would be willing to capture honest information related to the kidding history of 5-20 animals. Information would have to be captured on each animal.

Objective:

To collect kidding information occurring this season to evaluate the productivity level of full blood does. Specific results would not be posted that showed other breeders how your animals did. However, you would get a report of the results showing how your animals did compared to the average of all the animals and possibly with some of the top performing animals.

Type of data needing to be captured:

  • Age of doe
  • Was it her first time to kid?
  • What time of year did she kid?
  • What part of the country do you live in?
  • How much feed did the doe get each day while raising the kids.
  • # of kids
  • Did you have to help deliver them?
  • Did you have to help kids start nursing?
  • Were any kids already dead before being born?
  • Did any die during the first 24 hours?
  • What was the birth weight?
  • What was the Does weight after kidding? (we have a way to calculate the weight that everyone will use.)
  • Which kids survived to weaning age of 3 months?
  • What was the weaning weights?
  • Did the doe accept the kids?
  • Did the doe have pregnancy toxemia prior to kidding?

What will be in the Report?

I am not sure yet but there are many ways this type of data can be evaluated. Here are a few examples:

  • What is the average number of kids a doe had on her first time kidding
  • What is the average number of kids a doe had when she had kidded before
  • What percentage of does had to have help during labor?
  • What percentage of kids had to be given help in finding the teats within a certain amount of time.
  • What was the average weight of kids born?
  • What percentage of the kids died or was dead at birth?
  • What percentage of the kids lived to weaning age?
  • What was the percentage of the Does weight to the weight of the weaned kids?

If we find that there are enough breeders interested in helping with this research, I will document how we will collect the information. Each breeder will be given some generic IDs for the does, the bucks they were bred to and how to create additional generic IDs for the kids when the doe gives birth. That generic information from all breeders will be collected in a data base where I can generate reports showing valuable information that each breeder can compare how their animals did compared to the average of other breeders in similar parts of the country and/or that kidded at a similar time.

Right now, I just need to see if there is any interest. We will be documenting this info for our does this season. Again, no one will know how your animals did. We don't want this to be potential marketing material because that results in breeders fudging on their animals results.

If you are interested, contact me at

jack@jackmauldin.com