# Color Genetics



## TroutRiver (Oct 14, 2010)

Hi everyone,

I am still relatively new to the world of dairy goats. I've had my small herd for a few months, and it's been an ongoing learning process (in a good way!). I wasn't entirely sure where to post this, but thought it would be safe to put it here. An admin can feel free to move it if there's a better spot for it.

I am wondering if any of you know much about color genetics in goats? I am asking just because I am curious. I am raising goats for dairy and for meat, and I have sold a couple of the hides from the meat goats to a local drum maker (and hope to start making my own drums at some point in the future). He leaves some of the fur on the edges of the drum heads so you can see the coat color, and I'm curious as to what kinds of color patterns I might expect to get from my 3 girls in the Spring when they kid. Mostly, I'm just over-excited and can't wait to see how the babies look in the spring :dance:

I am going to be using the same buck to breed all 3 does. Skov is a purebred nubian with good dairy lines. He is black with white spots. Below is a link to a picture of a goat that has the same color pattern that he has (but this is a picture that I pulled off of google, I don't have any photos of Skov). He is all black and white except for a small faded patch of brown on one of his ears, just like the goat in the photo. Here's the photo:

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w38/ ... CF4132.jpg

One of my ladies I have posted about before (she is doing MUCH better and is looking good and healthy now, for any of you who might remember my previous post). She is also a purebred nubian, and is all black with white ears and a white spot on her forehead. She had a brownish tint to parts of her coat over the summer. But she was also pretty sick for a good part of the summer. Now she is healthy and fat again (and has also grown her winter coat) and she is looking BLACK.

Another girl that I have is a nubian/alpine cross, she is a light brown with stripes on her face and a small white patch on each side and a light colored belly. She also has black marks on her legs.

The third doe that I have is about 1/3 nubian and 2/3 boer. She has the classic boer coloring, white body with a brown head and neck.

I know a little bit about genetics and dominant/recessive genes, but not about goats in particular. According to the research that I've tried to do on my own, I understand that lighter/tan colors are dominant and black is a recessive color gene, but I haven't been able to find much more than that. Are any of you genetics gurus that might be able to help me make some predictions?


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Have you seen this link?

http://www.goatspots.com/genetics.htm
Genetics of any kind are fascinating to me, but I'm still learning the basics. :book: I read a high school biology book that explained some things about DNA, and that helped a lot.


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