# Parrot Mouth?



## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

I am really curious about parrot mouth. Out of around 70+ kids, we just had one born with parrot mouth last weekend. He was a huge kid (15lbs @ 24hrs old), his dam is a small Boer X doe, his head was twisted back and I seriously think he had been that way for a while with as big as he was. She also went 2 days over her due date.

He's doing great, big, healthy, and just absolutely sweet, he has stolen our ♥'s. 

But I wonder is it truly just a genetic factor, or could other things play into parrot mouth? Such as the way he could have been laying in the womb? Mineral deficiencies? Worming? I haven't had a chance to do any on line research.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

In my experience, it is most likely genetic. I have had a doe produce two kids with it, they never grew out of it, I never wormed her while pregnant and she had minerals and mineral + vitamin shots during her pregnancies. 
I did an experiment to see if her bucks would throw it (only got one doe kid from him), and she thus far has not produced a parrot mouth, she will be kidding again soon and her daughter will be kidding this year as well, so I will see if it shows up again.


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## loggyacreslivestock (Mar 5, 2013)

From what I read, true parrot mouth is most likely genetic. It is a recessive gene in both parents. One or the other parent may never throw one again unless bred to another recessive gene.


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## groovyoldlady (Jul 21, 2011)

"Parrot Mouth???" :whatgoat: Groovy scrambles off to Google!!!!!

Ah, so essentially "parrot mouth" is an overbite? (I've never heard of it before...)


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Thanks. I was just wondering, curiosity has the best of me, but I just haven't had the time to really google and see what info was out there on it.

We love our boy so much, we are having so much fun with him. He's always so happy, and is like a big, awkward blood hound with those long, floppy boer ears ♥♥
He was 15lbs @ 24hr old, and 4 days old he was 16lbs! he'll be a week old tomorrow! Horrible, hard delivery, his head was twisted back and it took us forever to find it and I was able to get him out. His Mom is still in bad shape, I seriously didn't think she would live after that. She is still in really rough shape.

I've been meaning to make a birth announcement on the kids and show pics & video.

This is our boy @ 2 days old



























We have been supplementing him until his mom can produce enough milk to support him. 4 days old, and snoozing on my daughters lap.


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

What a cute little chunky monkey!
In nearly 10 yrs I have had just one case of parrot mouth/undershot jaw. My concern would be that the kid is able to eat normally.
Ours did just fine but eventually went for meat.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

I know it makes you wonder huh? I wouldn't hold anything against anyone right now unless it keeps showing up. Meah, my one doe bred to my one buck Rigby 3 times, got 8 kids out of that breeding and 1 parrot mouth. She has since been bred to another buck 2 times 5 kids and nothing. But that second buck, starchy bred another doe twice 4 kids and 1 very small parrot mouth. And that's it out of roughly 400 kids and 5 years of kidding lol I can't make sense of it either. It's not like it's a all the time kind of thing out of any one animal


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

Cute little guy!


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Yeah unfortunately, that is a bad parrot mouth there it isn't mild.  It is genetic.


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

I Agree,,genetic. I wouldn't breed the same buck and doe together...its the two of them together that causes this...at least from how I understand it. he will make a nice wether pet and should do fine as long as he has a full pallet and he can eat fine...


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## groovyoldlady (Jul 21, 2011)

Oh...He's adorable!


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

I found this on a horse site. It makes more sense than recessive genes which would cause a noticeable count of off spring from each breeding. 

The cause of parrot mouth is often not fully clear. Several causes are possible including genetics, trauma and illness as a foal near a period of rapid growth. 

The condition can result from the top jaw (maxilla) developing too long, or the bottom jaw (mandible) developing too short. Usually it is the lower jaw that is too short. But anything which interferes with the match up of the top and bottom jaws can cause a horse to be parrot mouthed. 

As far as genetics go, parrot mouth is NOT directly heritable. That is, we rarely see an individual sire or a mare throwing an abnormally high number of parrot mouthed foals. The most common cause of it is when a mare is bred to a stallion of very different head type. Surprisingly, these two stud animals often have normal teeth structure, yet when they are bred, the mismatch is so great that a parrot mouth offspring is produced. 

The commonest example of the mismatch is when a stocky and short, wide headed stallion is bred to a lean long headed mare. Thus a breeder needs to be careful and considerate even of head type when planning to breed a superior foal. 

It is important to remember that malocclusions in horse's teeth (when they are not in the correct positioning and alignment etc) is poorly understood when it comes to how heritable it is, and is often a very complex mismatch of many genes. Thus having a badly conformed mouth in your animal may present a risk in breeding, but certainly doesn't mean that animal will throw offspring with a similar condition.


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## loggyacreslivestock (Mar 5, 2013)

Hmm. Food for thought. We are always looking for Roman noses on our goats and deep wide jaws, but I really never look at the length of the jaw. In my instance, my doe Tator has a long face and jaw. The site indeed did have a short wide head....


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

there sure is not much out there on goats and parrot mouth...I did find some interesting stuff..this first sight has lots of good reads lol..but only a small bit on parrot mouth



> http://www.uwyo.edu/vetsci/undergra...rot_mouth_(overbite;_maxillary_prognathism):_
> 
> Parrot mouth (overbite; maxillary prognathism)
> 
> *This inherited disease is congenita*l, and one reason a horse's mouth is examined by purchasers. The anterior part of the upper jaw protrudes in front of the lower jaw. Such horses require feeding management since they are poor grazers, as well as sound veterinary advise (I grant you that horses are poor at taking veterinary advice). Affected animals eat more slowly than the other horses, especially as they age; separate feeding helps. Such horses do better on hay than pasture. Animals should be turned out for exercise, but don't count on grazing to give animals substantial amount of nourishment.





> https://archive.org/stream/bulldogjawparrot00muir/bulldogjawparrot00muir_djvu.txt
> 
> Furthermore, failure of certain sheep breeders to cull out abnormal
> animals has had a tendency to increase the number of defective rams offered
> ...


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

loggyacreslivestock said:


> Hmm. Food for thought. We are always looking for Roman noses on our goats and deep wide jaws, but I really never look at the length of the jaw. In my instance, my doe Tator has a long face and jaw. The site indeed did have a short wide head....


You know what you might be onto something there. I personally have only seen boers and 1 Nubian with parrot mouth. I'm wondering if anyone has ever had alpines, lamancha and such with parrot mouth. I'm gonna google it and look at images!


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Ok well a real fast search, I need to make dinner does show I think a alpine and a saanen with parrot mouth but not overly bad like I have seen in the kids I have had and the Nubian I saw. And nothing says those goats are not crossed with Nubian. I would be interested to know if anyone raises something without a Roman nose and gets parrot mouth. Ok need to feed myself!


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

> I'm wondering if anyone has ever had alpines, lamancha and such with parrot mouth.


friends of mine just had triplets born...3/4 lamanch 1/4 nubian...the buckling had parrot mouth....bad enough they had to put him down...


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Oh how sad  but that still goes with the Roman nose thing going on, well and Jill's on 2 different heads as well


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Wow, very interesting information! This doe is not a large framed doe, she's only about 135lbs. at healthy weight. She doesn't have a wide head. The buck was a youngster, only around 7mo at the time of breeding. He wasn't overly huge either, but he was young, so I wonder how wide framed his head will be.

Now the thing that worries me is... Her daughter is bred on the same sort of bloodlines.
Her daughter is a yearling, and is going to be bigger than her as long as we can keep her maturing well. She is one of the youngest 2015 does we had born a year ago, and is one of the biggest. Please pray for healthy babies, because we absolutely adore her. 

We'll be looking for a buck this summer that is not related in any way. Has to have very distant relatives. But I'd heard of people doing this one time and having really good results, so we'll see. 
Hopefully I won't have nightmares about alien babies! :shock:
She's due 2 weeks from tomorrow.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

From what me and a few of my friends have noticed, it almost always happens to buck kids. Both my kids that had parrot mouth were bucks, all of her kids in the past that have had it were bucks too. Never heard of anyone having a parrot mouth doe either.


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

The only thing I've ever seen in doe kids is the long lower jaws that make the doe look like they are smiling. That can be traced to single Nubian herd right down the road from me :lol:


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Jessica84 said:


> I'm wondering if anyone has ever had alpines with parrot mouth. I'm gonna google it and look at images!


Lol, any luck with google, Jessica? You could have just asked me, I'm apparently full of these dirty little secrets lately! :ROFL:


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

The one we had was a doe. Otherwise perfect.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Lol ok instead of google images I'll just ask little bits and pieces  ok that's a pretty good parrot mouth! 
Now I actually had one of each, a doe and a buck although the doe didn't have it very badly, it actually took me awhile to pin point why she looked so funny to me! The Nubian, what it was was a friend asks me to go look at this Nubian family she wanted to buy and that girl had it BAD!! But she was a nice fat and healthy kid so it didn't seem to slow her down any. I mean she was fat off brush and grass not hay and grain.
But honestly I wouldn't worry about the daughter having problems. I had to line breed quite a few girls last year and most of the kids I was totally impressed with! I had half brother and sister as well as father to daughter. The one I wasn't totally impressed with weren't anything bad just nothing that I looked at and went WOW at like some of the other kids, but of course I also had some kids not line bred that I said blah at lol. But no birth defects or anything goofy from any of them


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## loggyacreslivestock (Mar 5, 2013)

We need to keep track of this thread and continue to add info for future research!


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## Damfino (Dec 29, 2013)

LaManchas can get parrot mouth too. My friend breeds LaManchas and had several babies with parrot mouths one year (some of them quite bad--they had to go for meat). They all came from one sire, which of course she got rid of. No Nubian or roman-nosed genetics anywhere in her herd.


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## flatmountain (Aug 14, 2010)

In dogs, it's genetic, but it can skip generations and vary in severity. It seems that dogs inherit the bottom jaw and top jaw somewhat independently and breeding a long muzzled dog to a short broad muzzled dog (say to correct head for conformation) seems to show more off bites than a gradual breed improvement.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

It's crazy how little info there is out there, I think it would be neat for some kind of study to be done on goats with parrot mouth.

So I wonder, how many are able to survive and eat correctly vs. those who don't?

I had my gloves on yesterday afternoon and was petting him, and he put my finger in his mouth. My daughter was holding him so I told her I want to check his side bite. It appears to be off slightly, but not enough that he shouldn't be able to eat. In fact, if I hadn't had gloves on he'd probably have broken the skin on my finger with his bite! I would love to evaluate his bite better, but I don't want to stress him out trying to pry his mouth open.
He seems to be doing well, we stopped supplementing him and let mom take over as she seems to be making enough milk. At 2 weeks old he was 19.5lbs. so I'm guessing he has gained at least 5lbs. since birth (15lbs. at 24hr old). 
Still planning for him to be my son's market wether at this point.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

I don't know how, but the one I had and the one of my friend didn't seem to really bother them on growing. Mine was the same weight gain as its twin maybe a little less (it's been years lol) but I remember my friends and she was a very nice doeling. The previous owner was actually going to butcher her out because everyone told her she would never amount to anything but she was a super nice girl especially just off of brush and weeds


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

My parrot mouthed boys grew just as well as the correct ones, so it shouldn't be a problem. 

I'd bet you it happens way more often than anyone leads on, they just don't want people to know they've had kids with that kind of fault.


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## Steampunked (Mar 23, 2015)

Out of curiosity - does massaging the lower jaw forward actually help?


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Little-Bits-N-Pieces said:


> My parrot mouthed boys grew just as well as the correct ones, so it shouldn't be a problem.
> 
> I'd bet you it happens way more often than anyone leads on, they just don't want people to know they've had kids with that kind of fault.


I bet your right especially after hearing how so many people told that lady to put here down because it wouldn't amount to anything and it wasn't fair to the animal. I mean if they have it in their mind that they are not going to gain even half as much as the sibling or other kids I don't see them wanting to put that much money into it. Or as you say have it running around when people come over to look at kids to purchase.


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## VVFarm (Dec 14, 2015)

I have a doe that, when bred to the same buck two years in a row, had a parrot mouth kid each time. 
Against my better judgement I kept the non parrot mouth kid. Now with a different buck neither mother nor daughter has given me parrot mouthed kids. So I think it was just that crossing. Probably, like others have said, a recessive gene thing. 
Enjoy your cute baby!


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## VVFarm (Dec 14, 2015)

Little-Bits-N-Pieces said:


> My parrot mouthed boys grew just as well as the correct ones, so it shouldn't be a problem.
> 
> I'd bet you it happens way more often than anyone leads on, they just don't want people to know they've had kids with that kind of fault.


Isn't that the truth?! I've never admitted to the parrot mouths born on my farm.... just quietly shipped them. 
I think I'll dare to keep another doeling this year if she has one, because she's such a good goat otherwise.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Yeah, that is what I figured, farms want to keep hush-hush about it. I know a couple of years ago when we had a set of quads - only 1 was a doe that the odds were against her, and sure enough, about 4+ mo she started to look masculine and we realized she was a hermaphrodite. 
That has been the only other issue we've ever had. 

I am not embarrassed or ashamed of this little guy. This stuff I know has to happen all of the time, if it's not parrot mouth, it's something else.

I just hope if my kids do end up using him as a market wether, that they don't count it against him IF he has a nice build. Right now, he's long bodied, big chested, but a little loose, but... he's only 3 weeks old lol. 

The dam's yearling daughter is due Sunday on a very similar cross, so I have been on pins and needles worrying if babies will be okay. 
I didn't want to breed her to this buck, but I didn't have anyone else to breed her to, and the only way my husband would agree to let us keep the 2015 does was to breed 1 of them (we kept 5 lol).

I tried to get more pics of our boy yesterday, if I get some time later I'll upload some.


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## Bella Christmas (Sep 19, 2017)

Do any of you have any websites or links that we could see for further research?


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