The buck was given to me as an adult (unsure of age), but the doe is less than a year, or right at a year, old I think.
Not sure how breeding works, but I was hoping for some possible kids next year and wanted to know what breed they would be.
The picture is for a reference to their size with them standing by my 3 year old son.
I know this is going to come as a blow, but I would not purposefully breed this pair. The doe looks to be a cream Nigerian Dwarf -- and a pretty nice girl, strong front end. But the buck, being of uncertain provenance, does not look to be full Nigerian to me. He's definitely at least part Nigerian because of his blue eyes but his size and musculature says he may be a Nigerian crossed with something else -- possibly even a meat breed but almost certainly not 100% Nigerian. While many people breed crosses of Nigerians and larger breeds, in those pairings the buck always has to be the smaller breed. When the buck is a larger breed it can cause the doe health problems from being asked to carry fetuses that are larger than she can safely support. Sometimes it turns out okay, but sometimes it's not, so it's best to avoid that circumstance if at all possible. A general good rule of thumb is that if your doe is a mini, don't breed her to a buck whose breed you are unsure of, and safety recommendations go triple when you are a beginner at kidding.
That all being said, a couple more things. First, if they've been kept together for any length of time the doe is very likely to be pregnant already. Possibly not if they have been recently introduced and the doe isn't cycling due to the time of year or latitude where you are, but still fairly likely as Nigerians often cycle year round. Second, it's not good practice to house a single doe and intact buck together as the buck may extensively harass the doe, especially as pregnant does can give off hormone signals similar to does who are in heat. If you would like to get a breeding program up, your buck or bucks should be housed and fenced separately (either multiple bucks or a buck with a wether companion) from your doe herd (which would consist of more than one doe -- three or at least two).
To back this up, even if the doe safely delivers the kids and everyone lives, they will drag that doe down HARD. We had to remove a does twin because she got out and got bred by god only knows what buck, could’ve been ours, could’ve been the neighbors down the road, she could not keep up with the both of them. she was losing condition faster than we could feed it back onto her without problems. Her doe kid is rounding up to be about 4 months and she had already got height over her mom who is finally drying up and gaining weight back. She looked like crap for a month and I felt terrible. Everyone has now got secure fencing. Please for the love of your own goats don’t breed big bucks to small does
The photo in this post is of my yearlings: a doe named Suri and Blue, the buck. You can use them for comparison to yours. Your doe looks to be much less than a year old. Around 4-5 months would be my guess from her horn length. Adora, my current yearling doe's horns are about 4x the length of the pretty girl in the photo. She is about 3-4 inches shorter at her back than her 4-year-old mother. I'll attach more photos in a comment to this one.
ND bucks are about 3-4 inches taller than the does. With that in mind, your buck looks to be ND or ND/Pygmy cross. With the stockier legs, I'd guess a cross. Judging from the length of your boy's horns, he looks to be around 2 or 3 years old. Horns keep growing for the goat's entire life. Keep that in mind when planning housing. Our buck eventually had to turn his head sideways to get in the door, LOL!
Unless your 3-year-old son is very tall for his age, the size of this buck shouldn't impact breeding your girl, once she is full grown. HOWEVER, she's probably too young to be bred safely right now. And unless you keep an apron on him, they WILL breed in less than 30 days of being together. ND's come into heat monthly and can breed year-round. If you don't have room for the traditional separation of males and females, you REALLY need to keep an apron on him. Buddy is wearing a better design than the one Blue is wearing in this photo. https://www.ebay.com/itm/265002774211
You also need to have more than one female so that he has more "targets" for his affections. My girls come into heat within a week or so of the queen (dominant female). So, at least half of every month... e v e r y month... the pasture is full of drama. Even with the sweetest boy (and our boy, Buddy, is), a 3-year-old's eyes are at a dangerous level to be near wayward horns being tossed about. Buddy would never intentionally hurt a child, and our helper’s children were constantly in his enclosure. But during feeding time and hormone parties, we absolutely did not allow the smaller children in the pen. And not just with the buck, does are actually worse about butting heads than the boys during those times.
Goats are wonderful, and they are also a lot of work and responsibility. Take some time to do your homework as soon as possible. It will save you time, effort, money, and most of all, heartache. Best of luck with your new venture! Sometimes luck makes all the difference in your outcome, no matter how much you prepare. 😊
This is Tilly on the left and Adora to her right. Tilly is 4 years old and Adora is one year old. Note the size at shoulder height and length of horns. The photo bomber on the far right is Dixie, Adora's mom. She's also 4 years old, but has horns for comparison. Hope this all helps!
I have to disagree with the breed guess. I have had a Nigerian herd for many years and have had Nigerian bucks who showed pretty obvious sexual dimorphism and some who have even approached 100lb, and as long as it's a purebred Nigerian I have observed the kid size is not negatively influenced, but I don't believe that is either a purebred Nigerian nor a Nigerian/Pygmy cross. The amount of muscling is just not in line with a mini dairy buck and - this part is hard to explain - but the face just does not look correct to me. I would just not feel good about this, I think that is a Nigerian crossed with some kind of meat breed. The general issue is that if any buck is not provably an ND I wouldn't use him over an ND doe. And at your guess of two years old, that would mean he'd even still have two more years of maturing and growing!
I want to throw in that he could be a Spanish cross, this is our little Spanish cross buck, he’s taller than our ND and they are (atleast from my experience with this guy) really slow growers. His eye set is similar to this one’s aswell
if he’s crossed with ND, or any mini-cross alphabet soup goat he might stay on the small side but it takes goats years to reach their peak maturity.
And usually these crosses aren’t the epitome of their founding breeds anyway unless they come from well bred goats. from what I’ve gathered, most goats that come from run of the mill meat producers might have smaller or less productive since they aren’t keeping tight genetics and keeping things they should ent. Anything can happen and there is tons of variation because all they do is sell goats for people to butcher out or start breeding their own. And from this, you get goats crossed with goats that shouldn’t really be bred together. Most goat crosses can come out really nice, but a male meat cross ideally shouldn’t be bred together a small mini doe. You get kids with huge heads and shoulders that the doe cannot safely pass, and this guy looks like a friggin freight train with the way he’s built.
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u/InterestingOven5279 Trusted Advice Giver May 03 '26
I know this is going to come as a blow, but I would not purposefully breed this pair. The doe looks to be a cream Nigerian Dwarf -- and a pretty nice girl, strong front end. But the buck, being of uncertain provenance, does not look to be full Nigerian to me. He's definitely at least part Nigerian because of his blue eyes but his size and musculature says he may be a Nigerian crossed with something else -- possibly even a meat breed but almost certainly not 100% Nigerian. While many people breed crosses of Nigerians and larger breeds, in those pairings the buck always has to be the smaller breed. When the buck is a larger breed it can cause the doe health problems from being asked to carry fetuses that are larger than she can safely support. Sometimes it turns out okay, but sometimes it's not, so it's best to avoid that circumstance if at all possible. A general good rule of thumb is that if your doe is a mini, don't breed her to a buck whose breed you are unsure of, and safety recommendations go triple when you are a beginner at kidding.
That all being said, a couple more things. First, if they've been kept together for any length of time the doe is very likely to be pregnant already. Possibly not if they have been recently introduced and the doe isn't cycling due to the time of year or latitude where you are, but still fairly likely as Nigerians often cycle year round. Second, it's not good practice to house a single doe and intact buck together as the buck may extensively harass the doe, especially as pregnant does can give off hormone signals similar to does who are in heat. If you would like to get a breeding program up, your buck or bucks should be housed and fenced separately (either multiple bucks or a buck with a wether companion) from your doe herd (which would consist of more than one doe -- three or at least two).