We started doing this last year with our Angora goats. Our objective is to breed the best examples of Angora goats for the environment of our farm, yet each breeding season we were diluting the females’ genetics with the genetics and epigenetics of another farm. So last year we kept 4 bucks entire and used three of them. We will see over time how this plays out. We made our selections of males to keep entire pedigree blind. Having then looked at the pedigrees, it is interesting to see that the ones that shone out are line bred to a common female ancestor.

I think that once you have got to the point where you have some really good females it is worth breeding your own males. The real difficulty when starting a herd/flock is acquiring excellent females. As the late great English race horse trainer, Henry Cecil said, “the mares are the stud, anyone can buy a stallion”.