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18/09/2024

I was speaking to an individual about NSIP and EBVs. We were discussing the general lack of participation amongst goat breeders in submitting data. They mentioned that one of the common roadblocks they hear for goat breeders seems to be the associated cost. I decided to throw together a cost/benefit spreadsheet using NSIP's current fee structure.

The short and dirty summary of it is, even in very small operations, you only need to get about 3 lbs per kid more to pay for itself or be able to charge an additional $9/goat. If you have more animals, that can cut in half. Considering many registered animals are selling for over $1,000 (some much more), I don't think buyers would baulk at $1,010 if you said that animal had performance data to back it up. And if they do, they're probably not the buyers you want.

Consider that beef producers have been using EPDs for over 30 years, and sheep producers for over 20 years, that tells you how far behind the other meat producing industries goat producers are. I find it fascinating that we're baulking at these fees when sheep ranchers, who often get less per pound than goat producers, have no qualms with it, and are even paying higher fees so they can get additional genomic enhanced data, over and above the EBV data.

Consider taking the step today to become an NSIP member and submit your animals data so you can receive valuable performance data on your herd. Help propel the goat industry forward!

NSIP recently hired a new director, David Scales. Don't hesitate to reach out to him and get any of your questions answered. The www.nsip.org website also has lots of resources to learn more about EBVs, how they're calculated, and why they're helpful.

National Sheep Improvement Program

We also have a Q&A page on our website, specifically addressing questions around EBVs at https://www.rafterplivestock.com/ebvs-faq

02/09/2024

Can you smell him?! Sure a fine looking buck though in our opinion.

19/07/2024

Pictures of the breeding bucks this morning. I love watching nice bucks.

06/07/2024

588. Out of 516 (doe) and 521 (buck). Our first kid we've retained from all RPL registered stock. Born March of '23. She's one we retained for ourselves and glad we did. She is the best looking in our opinion and had the numbers to back it. Excited to breed her this fall.

10/06/2024

Good ole DS Shootout. Just passed 4 years old. Haven't had to hardly touch this guy over the years. Talk about low maintenance. He's got plenty of feed right now though! Was looking prime tonight, so snapped a quick one of him.

10/05/2024

A few of the gentlemen on the place posing for a picture this morning! Starting to slick off with the warmer weather and green grass.

01/05/2024

Goat kid picture overload! Pretty happy with this round of kids. Out of 4 different bucks (Shootout, Big Country, 538, and 521). Excited to see how they develop and the growth stats that will accompany them. As always, we'll retain all kids until at least 6 months to get birth, wean, and 6 month weight, all submitted for EBVs.

11/04/2024

Love cute kids!

06/04/2024

30 degrees, 20 MPH winds, and it's snowing again. Have kids hitting the ground. We were hoping if we could wait until April we'd be good this year. 😆 So much for that! Up to 10 kids so far. So grateful for a barn to kid in. Cute kid pictures forthcoming...

02/04/2024

Literally 24 hours apart. Sunny is today. Babies could be hitting the ground any day now

22/03/2024

RPL 538 (still working on a name) this buck was born a year and a half ago. We decided to retain him for ourselves. He's turned out super nice in our opinion. Stacked dude. Did a couple test breeds out of him that should hit the ground in a week or two. Excited to see how they turn out.

02/01/2024

For those of you looking for a good method to feed through the winter, we've really really liked this simple fence line feeder system. Two 2x6's, and one 2x4 then about a 7 to 8 inch spacing and another 2x6. It's worked for 6 month old on up. Everything from the big bucks to the doelings. Way less waste, easier feeding, and not having to pitch it over the fence or see them laying in it. Probably wouldn't work with babies in the mix, but working extremely well for the mix we have.

24/11/2023

Snow has come in force! Fun to watch the goats still working for some breakfast, even though we are feeding hay.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

14/11/2023

What does BWT stand for? How about MWWT? NLB? WFEC? PWT?

When does wean weight end and post wean weight start? When should I take f***ls?

Great questions! Here is a link to the NSIP glossary of definitions and explanations on terminology and time frames.

Appendix A – Traits/EBVs -- Terminology and abbreviations

28/10/2023

Well, we tried something new this year. Goats on a boat. Yeah, you read that right. We had an opportunity to graze an uninhabited island this summer in the middle of a river. So we bought a pontoon boat, built a goat box, and gave it a go. We transported 25 does and around 50 kids out to the island via the boat in May. We just pulled the last wethers off the island this weekend (well, minus two that got away and we couldn't find yet), with many thanks to some of our family for helping round them up.

We tried checking on them on occasion with a drone, and on occasion on the boat. Some fun adventures, some less than fun adventures, and lots of learning!

What we learned:
1. Yes, it's possible.
2. Actually, overall, they did really well. Had a variety of forage and most did well on it. We lost a couple does and a couple kids early on, but once the weak ones were culled out, the rest did fantastic.
3. Goats like Russian Olive trees. These pictures, you can see that they stripped all the leaves and the bark off the young ones from everything within their reach down.
4. Goats won't swim. They hate water and marsh. At least the ones we were running. Unless a dog is chasing them. Then they will. Then they won't swim back. So you have to chase them down in your boat before they drown to throw them back in.
5. No fences needed was a huge plus.
6. No predators another plus
7. It was more work than it was worth in the end we think. We won't be repeating the endeavor.
8. If you want to create talk around town and solidify your reputation as a crazy goat person, taking them on a boat is a great way to do that.

25/10/2023

What can be measured and have an EBV associated with it?

This is so cool to me about EBVs, is that there is so much you can measure and get EBV results on. There are carcass traits, such as birth weight, wean weight, post wean weight, yearling weight, etc. There are fertility measurements for both male and females; scrotal circumference (bigger tends to mean higher fertility) and quantity of kids per kidding for females. You can measure mothering ability with an EBV that calculates the mothers ability to wean live kids. Also, it can measure the mothers ability to produce large volumes of milk for the kids, through the additional pounds gained by the kids. There are EBVs that measure parasite resistance through egg counts. There are even EBVs that can measure fat depth and loin eye muscle size to hone in even more on producing the best yielding meat animals

06/10/2023

Two for one today. First question has been around contemporary groups. Good contemporary group structure is critical for the success and value of the EBVs.

A contemporary group is simply a group of animals that have all been born and raised the same way in the same general time frame. This again goes back to the idea behind EBVs, to remove the effects of their environment and isolate performance based upon genetic potential. According to NSIP, a contemporary group must have no more than 42 days difference in age. This is to assure the animals have been raised in a similar manner, with similar environmental conditions, and it happens to line up with two heat cycles for goats.

A good contemporary group is ideally a minimum of 15 does per buck, and two bucks per breeding, with the does bred and kids born within 42 days. This is obviously the “ideal”. It doesn't mean you can't do less or modify as needed and still get EBVs and still have valuable results. We are personally around 20 does, with two or three bucks and we are seeing valuable results over time. Rusty, the director at NSIP has his own flock of sheep and has often only ran one ram and initially only had around a dozen ewes, as I understand, and through cross herd genetics and time got very valuable and accurate results. Again, the ideal isn’t always met, but we try to get as close to the ideal (or better) as possible.

So you might have 3 or 4 contemporary groups per kidding. For example, and this is solely an example to illustrate, you might have 1- early and mid drop kids (maybe the first 42 days), 2- late drop kids (ones that came after the 42 day window), 3- bottle babies, and 4- embryos via recips. All raised differently, using different methods, and different times. Maybe you started out with 30 does and two bucks with the aim to hit the ideal. Once real life hits, it splits it into 4 different groups, and it's less than ideal. However, it is still valuable data, and still critical you separate according to different environments.

Next Question: My results don’t make sense. Some animals appear to be better and it's not reflecting right. Or I'm confident this is my better line, and it's not showing it. This is my first submission. They seem off and really low values. How come?

In the first generation of data submission for your herd, the accuracy values of your EBVs may be relatively low given that your herd simply may not have large amounts of data in the evaluation yet, or multiple seasons to compare to. With low accuracy, we expect some level of volatility in the EBVs. Fully expect your accuracies to increase in following kiddings as you add a second and third generation into the evaluation. That second generation just provides so much more information into the analysis that we almost always see increases in accuracy of 20-60% depending on the trait. Most new herds see this if there aren’t genetic connections to other NSIP populations and we consistently see an increase in accuracy with the second generation.

The value of EBVs will increase over time as you are able to create a large sample size, and as you are able to compare the same genetics over multiple seasons, environmental factors, and so forth. So don't give up after, one, two, or even three years. It's going to take time and effort to get there. Remember, cattle have been doing this for 30+ years to get to where they are today.

On the flip side, don't completely discount the EBVs, even early on. Often, over time, if you're open to what they say, you may find them to be true and accurate reflections. I know we've had a few surprises ourselves that we doubted strongly at the beginning, and were convinced were inaccurate, but have since proven themselves out and us wrong.

05/10/2023

Donna and T.J. both brought up a great point, and it was asked of us as well individually. Do I submit the data on all animals or just the ones I'm registering?

The answer is most definitely all your animals; your entire kid crop. This is critical. A quick explanation of how EBVs work may help us understand why. Each data point gathered (wean weight, birth weight, f***l egg count, etc), is taken and averaged for that contemporary group. A contemporary group is a group of kids that were all raised in the same environment in the same way. The individual is then compared to the average and how far they vary from that mean. So if you took only your best three animals to submit, then even though they're the best of the best, one might look average, one may look like a rock star, and one like he wasn't that great. When really, all were awesome compared to the rest of the group, but only part of the data was submitted and so the average changed and the data suggests poorer performance than actual. So it's very important to submit all animals and their data points. Garbage in garbage out when it comes to data and analysis of it.

An important side note is that NSIP allows you to submit data for culls or dead at births or similar to still get comparative data without paying for those animals, up to 30% of your crop. The caveat is that you don't get results back for those animals you deem culls or DAB. You don't pay for them though, so it saves you money, you get to broaden your population size, and get a more true measure of performance on the rest of your animals. So submit all your kid crop.

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Videos

Love cute kids! #SavannaGoats

We were sharing a video of the buck we bought from Pruitt Farms, and Lacy kindly made this awesome video for us of the buck we bought from her! Fun to show off some of the genetics we have around here! #meatgoats #savannagoats

A couple of the big boys coming in for some corn husks

Just hit 50 kids in the last 11 days. Been a little crazy around here, especially with the poor weather to go with it. 10 more Savannas, and 11 more commercials to go. Averaging 2.13 kids/doe thus far and only one death, so very pleased with that. A little over half way done. Hope we can finish out with those kinds of numbers.

The two largest, oldest, and most bossy gals on the place just got put back into the same pasture together. Not a lot of love lost between Aberdeen and Sunny... K121 not interested in getting between the two ole gals either while they work it out.

Hilarious to watch these kids play King of the straw bale! #SavannaGoats #goatkids #MeatGoats

It's still real early yet in their development of course, but already getting excited about several of these kids! Sure is fun to watch them play king of the rock and watch the mommas getting them ready for bed for the night.

#goat #goatkidsofinstagram #kingofthehill week old babies loving the new pen and new friends

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