G6S

OK G6S discussion then.


I was very disturbed to see this happen to a goat that came from me.
Dam was
Diva-Cam's Menagerie DY Diva N1180278
Sire was
Pete-All 4 Winds ET Mountain Elk N1335365

I have had roughly 40 kids from Pete that are in my herd and other peoples or butcher bucks. I have never lost one of his kids from a discription of G6S. We have 4 milking daughters here that are 2 and 3 yrs old and 7 doelings that we are keeping this year.
ALL of these does are fat healthy and beautiful to behold. We also retained a buck this year.

Diva on the other hand,
We purchased her from a close girlfriend that needed milk and when she had purchased her from Mr Faircloth earlier that summer, she had raised a buckling and he thought that she would milk for this woman. She dried off from the move and so the woman sold her to me, I was glad to have her BoK lineage in the herd to cross with another buck that I had. After getting her here, I called Cam and talked with he and his wife about her. She had never had a doeling for them and they still have her full sister, so they sold her. She had raised a couple of meat kids for them but most of her kids that had nursed ended up with a COCCI load and they lost them.......
Now that I know more about G6S that last statement rings a bell to me. What do you think?
I have called the Faircloths twice now and have not been able to reach them. I know that they are busy with collections this time of year, they have Mega Bucks semen works. I will still try to get ahold of them and maybe be able to talk to them over the weekend about this.


The buck that we sold to Oregon for breeding was just an excellent specimen.
He really did things for her herd and had been shown and also retained his first leg.
What bothers me is that this woman was so quick to destroy this buck when she loved him so much.
She has also destroyed most of the kids without testing. She did test her favorites and retained 1 or 2, but only to put them down after kidding she says.

Can anyone else shed some light on this attitude for me.
Jennifer

Nobody can even understand let alone explain how one person runs their farm over another....it's her farm. We all have to make decisions about our own management, and then purchase from those who have similar management or philosphies about genetic disease and communicable disease.

I will be only using G6S negative bucks, and eventually want to test all my does, I do know Babbett is a carrier, and I know how she has it, mostly because I don't think anyone owns as much of the bloodline as I do and via testing of sisters out of the line, it is her dam line.

Tim she means that the unthrifty appearance and failure to thrive that G6S kids have is usually blamed on poor kid rearing or cocci/worms or all of the above.

None of us keep all the kids we have born, none of us can even keep track off 1/2 of the kids born out of our bucks, so to say that all his kids are fine isn't true. Further yearlings can still be carriers, or they can be positive, they don't have to die young, they can be bred and kid. So it is not self limiting in every situation. Vicki

Any buck that I purchase or any buck that I keep as a replacement sire will be tested for G6S. Testing the whole herd right now is cost prohibitive. $30 a pop plus shipping and Vet bill is a whopping amount when you multiply it times every animal in the herd.

From Jennifer's post, I am assuming Pete turned up a carrier and was destroyed. A carrier buck is still healthy and can produce healthy offspring but he must be used on non-carrier does.

However, if this was the case that Pete was a carrier and this lady decided to "put him down", it was her way of managing the disease in her herd. I wouldn't do this with a buck who has thrown excellent kids, but I would have to test every doe he was bred to and then at least every buck kid I kept or sold from him. There is 50-50 chance of his offspring being a carrier.

Cam may be like a lot of breeders, they haven't seen the disease because they passed it off as an unthrifty fluke, or stunted from parasites or something. He probably can't give you any answers because he hasn't recognized the symptoms.

If you know Diva is the carrier in the pedigree then you can just still only guess that those cocci kids might have been G6S kids instead. How could you know unless the kids were tested as affected? It is really just a guess... Again I can almost guarentee that the breeder of Diva don't know her G6S status because if he did, he would be selective as to who he bred her to.

What Tim said is what I was talking about concerning the cocci look of Diva's kids the kidding that we got her.
Pete is MY buck, he is G6S neg.
Diva is undetermined, but it had to be her as Pete is neg.

BUT, it says in the research posting that it would be possible to use a good buck still, just be cautious on whom is he is bred to.

SO, is this the facts.....
If you breed a carrier to a normal, part of the kids will be carriers?
Carrier to carrier would beget affected?

If only the affected goats are a health risk and not the carriers and the carriers never will, then why is this such a big deal?
Just test you goats once in their life and breed accordingly.
If they are carriers, then they are, breed to normals.

CAE, TB and Bruc are tests that we have do every year, at least G6S is a once in a lifetime test. It is actually less expensive that any of the above per goat.

Another thing that we can discuss is does anyone know of carrier bucks that there is only semen available from or such so that we can breed informadly with all of this OLD semen in the tanks?

I have read it, and I do understand the method of inheritance.

Inheritance is not the only way to get metabolic disorders. Nonsense mutations occur all the time, and it is possible to have a first generation mutation for a known disorder where both parents are negative, or one is positive but the gene contributed by the normal parent is the one where the mutation occurred.

So unless youve actually tested the animal, although its unlikely to have a first gen mutation, it is possible. Its actually quite common in the human form of the disease, which has been studied a bit longer than the recently identified caprine form.

Another potential, if tested and the kid came up with two positive genes, is that the first test on the buck was a false negative. I'd consider that possibility far more likely. Thats actually one of the things I was wondering about when I asked the question.

The more esoteric thought is that this a genetic disorder that is known to produce a constellation of disease expression in humans- in other words, the exact same genetic sequence may produce barely noticable symptoms in one individual and severe disease in another. Since the reserach on the caprine form is really in its infancy, it would be very interesting if you identified an individual that appeared symtomatic with only one abnormal gene.

It might be an expression of another genetic fault in that individual, or a hint that disease expression in a heterotypic individual may be dependant on enviormental infuence. Or a dozen other subtleties. But the researchers might just find it worth looking at, if all other cause for the symptoms are ruled out.

I don't think you can come up with a false negative. Barring someone in the lab just not reading it right or reporting it wrong....so I guess it could happen. It is not a disease it is a genetic defect. Our foundation doe is a carrier. I cannot bear to get rid of her, I also cannot afford to test all of her kids. I did test her georgeous daughter and she was not a carrier. Her full brother was fine for the first couple of months and then became very unthrifty and ended up dieing at the home that her was sold to. So it is a bit hard to say the reason he died because he was not under my own management. This was way back in the beginning of our goat adventure. So I have been in the process of culling all carriers. I did breed our foundation doe to our normal buck. I figure that if she had any kids that I absolutely love, I will test them. Otherwise they get sold as pet quality and unregistered. I was told that the lines that have this most prevently are also some of the old lines that are known for their heavy milking ability, probably due to the heavy line breeding. (not saying that linebreeding caused it) Carriers do tend to be on the small side. If your status is unknown and you have a doe that is small for what is considered the norm she is most likely a carrier. I would like to say that everyone should test and cull the carriers but it is so very expensive and I myself have that favorite doe that I cannot bear to part with. It's a dilemma. Shannon