Saturday, January 8, 2011

For You Fiber Lovers... Enter the Nigora


WHAT IS A NIGORA?  (It's a goat that is a cross between a Angora and a Nigerian.)


Kami as a doeling in 2008
This is a cross that has been developing for many years for dual purpose of fiber and milk.  I first became interested in it about 4 years ago when I was doing some research on different goats leaning toward the milk and fiber line.  I came across the Nigora page, http://nigoragoats.homestead.com and was intrigued about them.  At the time I already was leaning toward getting some Angora does and was able to get a couple of older light color does from a wonderful lady, Tina Evans, in northern GA.  I put them with my blond color Nigerian buck and one doe took and gave me a beautiful doe, Kami,  that now resides with Linda, a wonderful lady that lives not too far from where I live.  Her pictures are above.

The next year, 2009, that same older doe gave me another beautiful doe that now resides in middle TN area.  She also has blue eyes like her older sister Kami.  I left both with their horns growing because I wanted to see how they would grow out; I love the way Angora does horns grow, so far the Nigora does horns have grown back just like their dams but not as large. This is the 2009 doe as a baby.  I have never seen a picture of her as a adult.
2009 doeling now living in middle TN

This past year, 2010, I was again blessed to have some nigora's born.  My other older doe finally took when bred to the same Nigerian buck.  She produced twin Nigora doelings.  One is more petite then the other and has blue eyes, while the other has a fiber that is crimpy and closer resembles the Angora side of her bloodlines and she has brown eyes and stands a little taller than her sister.   They are both staying at our place and I named them Mia and Gia after the first initials of my girls first names.  Mia is friendlier than her sister Gia, which I believe is taking after the Nigerian part of her bloodlines.  I have found that even though Angoras are pretty easy to work with they are not the friendliest goats where as the Nigerian goats can get very friendly.
 

These two are my twins, Mia and Gia, born this last year.  Aren't they cute!

For this spring 2011 I've exposed my mostly black nigerian doe with my two tone colored small angora buck. I'm hoping and praying for a nigora buck out of this pairing.  If so then I'll have something unrelated to my nigora does from this past year so I can breed for F2 Nigoras for 2012.  I have also exposed my Angora does to my Angora buck and then my Nigerian buck for a back up.  We'll see what I get out of those.  Please feel free to check my farm website in April to see what I have had born.  I'll have a 2011 baby page set up

 Listed below is the link the the Nigora_Goat_Notes site on Yahoo Groups.  We would love for you to check out this new up and coming breed.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Nigora_Goat_Notes/

2 comments:

  1. They are beautiful! I have an angora doe that I'll be breeding with a nigerian this spring for a fall kidding. I can't wait! Does the person in northern GA you mentioned still have angoras? I had to go to SC to get my doe.

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  2. Thanks for stopping by my blog. We are actually trying to breed Nigora babies for this spring. We have our Nigerian does in with our Angora buck - seems many people breed Angora does to Nigerian bucks, but we happened to have the opposite animals available - our buck is not big and our Nigerian girls are mature, so we are giving it a try. And, as we have lots of lambing experience, we figured we could handle potential kidding issues. Now I just hope our buck is fertile as this is his first year breeding - and we had no back up plan!

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