WHY LINES?
In “Managing Breeds for a Secure Future,” Dr. Phil Sponenberg reiterates numerous times the importance of preserving lines in order to preserve certain genetics and have them available for the future. He says, “Managing the bloodlines, strains, and varieties within a breed is important for long-term maintenance of the genetic variability that is crucial in breed viability.” By having breeders whose focus is the linebreeding of lines, the SCI goat population can maintain maximum genetic diversity, maintaining pools of unique genetics for other breeders to access to add to their herds.
It is a challenging task to attempt to preserve a line at this stage of the SCIGs life on the mainland. Until approximately 2008 when Leslie Edmundson started organizing San Clemente Island Goat history, lines were unknown in the SCI Goat community. Without access to a complete herdbook with the population’s true founders, with the exception of the Rivetti herd in California, Leslie started from scratch with the herds she could locate which were a compilation of true foundation genetics. Her lines were: Ahrensberg, Blake, Earth Spirit / Warren, Nellie Gail, New Hampshire, Plimoth, Rivetti, Tepper, Gil, and Vancouver Island.
The SCIGBA currently has committees working on compiling histories and pedigrees for our lines, filling in gaps to help breeders better position SCI goats for the future. As our research progresses, our understanding of these starting lines and the genetics represented by each will continue to be presented to the breeder community.
This work is critical and time sensitive as every year we lose more genetics and information to the past. From current data, the Blake and Gil lines have been absorbed into Canadian herds and no longer exist as separate bloodlines. Ahrensberg, Tepper and Plimoth appear to be much less available, and individuals who are alive and identifiable are of much lower percentiles. Our breed is nearing a stage where there are almost no primary lines left, but just blends of lines.
To help understand, let’s compare lines to the primary colors: red, blue, yellow. Imagine starting with individual cups of limited amounts of each color. Once utilized, they are gone. Mixing any two of the colors will give you a secondary color with the shade dependent on the ratio: orange, purple, green. The mixing represents your breeding and the resulting color and genetics represented in your kids. Start to mix all three and the paint starts to turn brown, with no resemblance to the starting primary colors nor the secondary colors. Plus, there are no remaining primary colors to help turn the paint to a different shade. If you needed a red, yellow, or blue; it would be too late.
What if the red represents genes which are parasite resistant or resistant to a new goat disease? How would you reintroduce these genes to the population with all of the red gone? If we have breeders preserving each of the primary colors, i.e. lines, they can be accessed at any time. Every painting needs some brown, so not every SCI herd needs to represent a line, but as a whole community, we need to be able to track these genetics to ensure enough focus is being placed on these genetics, and this brings up again the need for a comprehensive Herdbook which includes all San Clemente Island Goats and is accessible to the community.
We are talking about this, not to be a harbinger of bad news, but to bring attention to this situation and hopefully attract more breeders to pursuing Tepper and Plimoth, particularly. The Ahrensberg is currently being worked on by a co-op of breeders.
New Hampshire: Laurel has been involved with bolstering the New Hampshire line. It was named this because it started at Dave Adams’ East Hill Farm, in New Hampshire. It was heavily contributed to by Leslie Edmundson and Heamour Farm, Shannon Nichols, and some others. Dave Adams was particularly fond of goats with the light tan coloring with San Clemente pattern and this is what he bred for. ( Note: Not all NH goats have this coloring now.)
There are currently 8 breeders working together on the NH line to maintain genetic diversity within the line and increase its numbers. If you have goats you believe to be 50% New Hampshire or higher, please contact Laurel Sherrie. From Laurel’s 3 years of research and tracking down goats of high % New Hampshire (above 50%), where we stand today with young and breeding age goats is 26 does and 14 bucks. However, on the bucks, the 14 derive from only 4 separate genetic lines, so careful planning has to be done with current resources. Only 1 or 2 bucks have had semen collected & stored.
Just 40 breeding/young goats nationwide out of approximately a population of 1400. Except for a couple of bucks, semen and eggs have not been collected as of yet. Some of these are not available to the NH Breeding Program. Many others have been lost due to not having any record of who they were sold to. Many others have passed on due to age, accident, etc.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
Most importantly, we need proactive breeders. The first step is enrolling your herd in the SCIGBA Registry - the only comprehensive, accessible registry owned and operated by the SCI Goat breeders with copies held by The Livestock Conservancy.
Registration and record keeping is essential in breed conservation. We encourage all breeders to participate. Pedigrees produced by the SCIGBA Registry are not copyrighted and can be utilized by breeders in their marketing, sales, and development of breeding programs plus by the association for projects such as the Lines Preservation Project discussed above.
To learn more about the SCIGBA Registry, please follow the link: https://scigba.org/registry-introduction
Secondly, once you receive your pedigrees, study their lineage and bloodlines, if you don’t already know them. For any goats that have 25% or greater of a line, reach out to find other high % goats. And reach out to Laurel Sherrie with this information as well.
Lastly, VOLUNTEER. We need help with research. Interviewing past and current breedings. Tracking down historical records and pedigrees. And so much more.
By Sarah Howell & Laurel Sherrie
Reach us by Private Message on Facebook or at scigbassoc@gmail.com.