When dealing with all things in nature, I have learned to never say
never, but cross species breeding is indeed rare if not impossible.
The only problem i have heard of running goats with blackbellies is that
the goats will but the blackbellies and injur them.
Blackbellies are a natural hair sheep as they are from the tropics,
Barbados. They were bred with french Moufflin to get horns on them for
the Texas Game ranches. They were bred with (someone correct me here)
with Suffolk or Rambouillet to tame them down. The wool that appears is
from the Mouflin or domestic sheep blood line. My last lambs were from
a 3/4 Moufflin ram and I have several that appear wooly. Also several
that have light coats with almost no black stripes. I used to be
concerned with getting offspring that conformed to the breed standard.
Now I just want healthy viable lambs and ewes that can raise them
without supplementing. It appears that the lighter coat ewes have less
problem when the winter is worse and the wheat pasture is not available.
If you are going to milk them I would suggest getting children or
someone with small hands to milk them. However I only get maybe 30 cc
from a good ewe at birthing time so milking them and getting enough for
cheese may make for some very expensive cheese. If it seems to be worth
the time and trouble, then I say go for it!!!
I would certainly support your trying to market some Organic Hawaiian
Blackbelly cheese to the tourists at $75 per ounce!!!!!!!!!!!
It probably would sell.......
Cecil in OKla
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Aloha,
It looks like I'm the local orphan feeder. I have a Nubian about a week old that had terrible scours when I got him and nothing seemed to work. Finally my neighbor said that the old Hawaiian cure for people is Guava. I got some fruit from our road, blended it and mixed the juice with the milk and the dear little thing did not have the scours since then. It truly worked.
Since this Nubian is a buck I'm wondering if anyone has ever had the goats mate with the sheep. My full grown Sweetie Pie (Kathadin) let him climb all over her back for 15 minutes yesterday.
My end goal is cheese and breeding. My girls seem big enough to milk but people tell me the teats are too small. Any experience?
If they won't mate, how was the wool bred out of them in the first place????
Are Blackbellies 1/2 goat or is that a myth?
Aloha a hui hou kaua!
(Goodbye until we meet again)
Barbara Heavens
POB 1869, Kea`au, Hawaii 96749
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