What Josie’s Appraisal Taught Me About Looking Deeper
Every dairy goat has a pedigree. Some are short and easy to follow. Some are packed with familiar herd names, old foundation animals, repeated ancestors, and enough twists to make you feel like you need a corkboard, red string, and a very large cup of coffee.
Josie is one of those goats.
On paper, she is a purebred Nubian doe born in 2022. In the barn, she is a mature doe who recently appraised FS90 EEEV, after having a much lower young appraisal score on her earlier record. That alone is interesting. A doe who changes that much from a young first appraisal to a mature Excellent score deserves a closer look.
But the better question is: where did that come from?
That is where pedigree research gets useful. Not just pretty, not just nostalgic, and definitely not just a list of old famous goats. A deep pedigree can show what has been concentrated, what has been repeated, what has been tested through Linear Appraisal, what has production or DHI evidence behind it, and where the same families keep showing up generation after generation.
I have posted about using ADGA Genetics before, but for Josie, I wanted to go far beyond a normal pedigree glance. Plus, it is a great summer project for the 4-H youth and their goats (just not so far back!) Most reports I run do not chase every old ancestor back as far as the records allow. Usually, a few generations are enough to make solid breeding decisions. And I usually go forward, not backward! Josie’s pedigree became a full Legacy-style case study because I wanted to see, and show our youth, what happens when we follow the threads all the way back and then ask a practical breeder question: which old ancestors are still useful to understand, and which are simply part of the historical background?
The goal was to turn a giant pile of pedigree records into something I could actually use. A goat from the 1940s is not single-handedly responsible for Josie’s udder today. Genetics do not work that neatly, as much as my storytelling brain would enjoy it.
But when certain animals, herds, or breeding programs appear over and over through many routes, they can still shape the genetic background modern breeders are working with. That is what makes this kind of research useful. It does not just tell us who is in the pedigree. It helps us understand what the pedigree has been trying to build.
Josie’s story is a deep dive into that process: how one modern Nubian doe connects to recent appraisal results, close family patterns, repeated modern ancestors, older influential herds, and the long history of selection behind her.
So grab a cup of coffee or whatever suits your fancy along with deep gratitude for Gene Dershewitz and come along with me for the long journey. This is the longest post I have ever written, and probably the longest I will ever write, but I’m writing it as I work through the process, fueled by too much caffeine……..and maybe an unreasonable amount of enthusiasm.
Why Start With the Doe in Front of You?
Before I go too far back in a pedigree, I want to start with the living animal.
I need to admit something right up front: Josie is my heart goat. My velcro goat. My shadow. The goat who makes me forget I am supposed to be objective because she is busy making direct eye contact and convincing me she has never once been fed in her entire life but that she loves me very much. She is also a mean girl who will hit any other goat she catches competing for my attention. Jealous Josie is her nickname. I adored her when her first LA as a FF scored in the 70s. I would have adored her if she had stayed there.
But loving a goat does not mean I stop being critical. Honestly, with Josie, I think I went too far the other way.
When she freshened for the second time, I picked her apart. I saw the things I wanted to protect. I saw the places I thought she still needed more maturity, more balance, more support. I did not expect her score to jump dramatically. I thought maybe she would come up a few points.
Then the appraiser gave her a 90.
And I cried.
Not because I was thrilled with her score, though I was. I cried because I realized that even though I adore Josie, I had been too critical of her. I had been so focused on the weak spots that I had not fully appreciated how much and how beautifully she had matured into herself.
That is one reason I wanted to deep dive her pedigree. I wanted to understand her better. I wanted to ask the questions a breeder should ask after a doe matures into a very different version of herself:
Where did this come from?
Was this maturity predictable?
Is her improvement supported by the family behind her?
What should I protect if I breed her?
And how much, if anything, do those long-ago animals in the pedigree really tell us?
For a normal breeder-level report, I would usually evaluate around eight to ten generations back, with the strongest emphasis on the closest animals and the relatives with real performance evidence. Josie is different. For this one, I let myself be part geneticist and a lot genealogist. I am a historian by training, so once the old herd names started showing up, I was doomed. The pedigree rabbit hole opened and I went right in, making poor life choices that distracted me from everything else I should have been doing for almost a week.
Josie’s earlier first-freshener appraisal was FS76 (AAFA) @ 02-03. Her current 2026 appraisal is FS90 EEEV as a second freshener.
That changes the starting point.
A young score in the 70s tells us one version of the doe. A mature mostly Excellent score tells us another. It does not mean the earlier score was wrong. It means the doe changed. She freshened again. She developed more body, more udder, more balance, and more maturity. Appraisals need context. They are not permanent labels stamped on a goat forever. We all know better than to judge a first freshener.
Josie’s score across the major categories tell us the appraiser saw strength across the whole doe, not just one flashy feature. But even an Excellent score is not the end of the analysis. It is the beginning.
Looking at her 2026 linear traits, Josie shows useful maturity and balance:
So, I still want to breed her thoughtfully. I would not treat any score as if every trait is locked in and untouchable. I would want a buck who supports bone and structural substance, improves rear udder arch and medial definition, and protects the dairy quality, mammary texture, rear udder height, udder depth, teat usefulness, and overall balance that make her special.
A final score tells us the overall result. Linear traits tell us the shape of that result. DHI and production data, when present, help us understand milk and component evidence. Type evaluations help us think about transmitting patterns. Pedigree depth helps us ask whether the traits we see in the doe are supported by relatives, repeated ancestors, and long-term family direction.
That is why Josie’s own appraisal is the first anchor point in this deep dive. Her mature score tells us the pedigree produced a doe who matured into strong functional type. Now the question becomes whether her family history helps explain that, whether the LA and DHI evidence support it, and whether those traits are likely to carry forward into daughters.
How I Built the Pedigree Archive
Once I had Josie’s pedigree in front of me, the next step was to build the archive behind her.
You cannot just look at the names and acronyms on registration papers or in the database and assume you have a great goat. I say it all the time: We really underutilize ADGA Genetics.
Note: I am not considering show wins at all here. Unless they are Nationals or large competitive shows, I don’t put much stock in CH for a couple of reasons. One, you can show at the same small local shows with the same competitors in a season or two and finish a goat, but that does not tell me she was truly competitive. Also, it is just a snapshot of that goat, that day. Two, and this is a soapbox for another time, some judges these days just pop the largest Nubian in first place and interpret the scorecard to fit her.
Once you start following those names backward, especially in a breed like Nubians, the pedigree stops being a simple tree and starts looking more like a braided creek. The same goats show up through different routes. Old herd names appear again and again. A buck may come through the sire side, then show up again through the dam side several generations later. Doe families fold back into each other. That is not automatically bad. It is what happens when a breed has influential goats, popular herds, and generations of breeders making decisions from the same genetic pool.
For Josie’s deep dive, I started by pulling the records behind her sire side and dam side. Her sire line begins with J&M Hideaway PR Rio Grande, and her dam line begins with J&M Hideaway GS Empress.
I love Hideaway lines, and Josie’s dam was every bit as special as Josie. Hideaway, NC Buttermilk, and Blissberry are some of my favorite herds because of the balance and dairy strength I see coming through those genetics generation after generation. I am not pretending to be neutral about that. I have preferences, and I have goats and herds that make me stop and look twice. The point is not to erase that, but to make sure my affection does not get to drive the whole truck without the data in the trailer.
From Josie’s sire and dam, I followed the pedigree records outward, saving the ADGA Genetics PDFs into three working groups: paternal line, maternal line, and shared ancestry.
But, a giant folder of PDFs is not analysis. It is a haystack. Useful, sure, but still very much a haystack.
Geek note: After downloading the pedigrees, we sort them into maternal, paternal, or shared ancestry folders; check for any missing goats in the pedigrees; scan all performance scores and awards; and then put everything to spreadsheets. We have to run OCR on the pedigree files so they can be searched since they download as an image and can be more difficult to read by machine. I use Python to read the spreadsheets. It is a lot of data! For fun, I also ran reports by decade and analyzed performance trends. In plain English, the scripts check things like: did every goat in the logs actually save as a PDF after OCR, did we miss any files, are there duplicate registration numbers, did anything random sneak into the folder, and are the goats sorted correctly into paternal, maternal, or shared ancestry? Are all available scores recorded?
For Josie, the final cleaned archive contained 3,772 records. After a few more tests, I reached the point where I could trust that the archive was not full of strays, missing records, or duplicate goat chaos.
The final folder classification was:
287 maternal-only goats
471 paternal-only goats
3,014 shared ancestry goats
That shared number is huge, and at first glance it looks alarming. But in a Legacy pedigree, one that goes all the way back to the first registered goat on each side, huge shared ancestry is not automatically a red flag. It tells us that once we followed Josie’s pedigree far enough back, the sire and dam sides began returning to many of the same historical goats and herd families, just like most goats. That is not the same thing as saying every shared goat is genetically important today. It means we have to separate close, meaningful concentration from distant historical background.
The cleaned archive allowed me to run reports that grouped Josie’s ancestry by decade, herd prefix, repeated ancestors, performance-data availability, and high-priority goats for manual review. The oldest ancestor found in the cleaned dataset was LOMA ALTO BRASSY – N000062596, born February 29, 1940.
Of course, that does not mean Loma Alto Brassy is personally responsible for Josie’s appraisal score today, because genetics do not work like a ghost story. But it does show how far back the reachable pedigree went, and it gives historical context for the old Nubian families behind her. Progeny from Brassy fall directly into the famous Hurricane Acres and Oakwood lines. Have Nubians? I bet yours do too.
This is where the historian in me gets a little misty. These were not just names in a database at the time. They were real goats in real barns, part of real households, kept by people making breeding decisions in the middle of history happening all around them. That is the part I love. The pedigree becomes more than a list of names. It becomes a record of breeder decisions.
Which herds show up again and again?
Which bucks were used heavily?
Which doe families survived through multiple branches?
And where does Josie seem to confirm the direction of the pedigree?
That last question is the whole reason for doing this. I do not want a deep report to become an antique goat catalog. The goal is not to admire old names for their own sake, although that is kind of cool too. The goal is to understand whether the old and modern pieces of the pedigree help explain the girl on my milkstand, and whether they give us useful guidance for future breeding decisions.
Once the archive was clean, I moved from collecting records to asking what the records actually showed: Linear Appraisal, DHI and production evidence, repeated ancestors, inbreeding contributors, herd-family patterns, and how all of it connects back to Josie herself.
What Shared Ancestry Actually Means
Josie’s archive showed 3,014 shared ancestry goats. That does not mean she has 3,014 close inbreeding problems. It means those goats were reached through both the sire side and the dam side somewhere in the deep crawl.
In a normal breeder report, where I am usually looking back at a manageable number of generations, a shared ancestor gets my attention quickly. If the same buck or doe appears close on both sides, I want to know why. Was the breeder trying to reinforce a particular mammary family? A strong general appearance pattern? Milk? Style? Or did the cross accidentally double up on something that needs corrected? Or, maybe, it was just the buck they had available?
Sometimes you can see in a pedigree exactly where a fault crept in, and if you look closely enough, you can see why. Some of the goats, especially bucks, that people love to see on paper are actually passing on some problematic traits. Never ignore ETA/PTA.
A pedigree looks like it should double forever: two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents. But livestock pedigrees do not keep expanding that cleanly. Breeders reuse influential bucks. Related herds exchange animals. Strong doe families get bred forward in several directions. Popular sires leave hundreds of descendants. After enough generations, the same goats begin showing up over and over through different routes.
That is pedigree collapse.
Pedigree collapse is normal in livestock. The important question is not, “Is there a repeated name?” The better question is, “What is being concentrated, and do I actually want more of it?” There is such a thing as too much of a good thing in goat genetics. As you’ll see, Josie is on the verge of having too much of a good thing.
A goat that appears once, far back in the historical layers, may be interesting, especially if it belongs to an old herd I love. But I am not going to make a breeding decision around that goat. At that distance, the individual genetic contribution is diluted. That goat is part of Josie’s historical story, fun for a geek like me, but not very useful by itself.
A goat that appears repeatedly, through both sides, and connects to appraisal records, DHI records, production evaluations, type evaluations, progeny, or a consistent family pattern gets more attention. That is no longer just a name in the old paper trail. That is a clue.
Josie is 11.94% inbred, with Royal Blue Nevada Joe as the largest individual contributor at 4.48%. Other top contributors include Kastdemur’s Nevada City, Kastdemur’s LH Full Service, Sweet-Spring PBC Berimargarita, Frog Flat Farm Blue Boy, Frog Flat Rosemary, Kastdemur’s Audacity, Kastdemur’s LE Exacta, and Sweet-Spring BCS Pnutbuttercup.
Royal Blue Nevada Joe is not just a famous historical name. He is a major contributor to what was concentrated in this mating. If you breed Nubians, I don’t need to tell you why!
The deeper shared ancestry is different. It helps explain the larger background behind her: the old herds, the repeated foundation goats, and the families that shaped the breed long before Josie was born. But I do not treat every shared ancestor equally. Some are central to the story. Some are supporting characters. Some are historical wallpaper, beautiful wallpaper, but still wallpaper.
This is where I have to balance my two brains. The genealogist brain wants to trace every name, every herd, every little connection. That brain is having a wonderful time and should probably be supervised. Seriously, send help.
The geneticist brain asks harder questions:
Is this ancestor close enough to influence this mating?
Does this goat appear many times?
Is the influence coming through both sire and dam?
Do we have Linear Appraisal, DHI, production, type, or progeny evidence?
Do the traits we see in Josie line up with the pattern behind her?
Shared ancestry by itself is not good or bad. It is a map. The meaning comes from reading the map carefully.
For Josie, the shared ancestry tells us her pedigree is deeply braided. Her sire and dam lines eventually return to many of the same Nubian families. The job is to sort that braid into useful pieces: close concentration, repeated modern ancestors, old herd influence, and historical background.
Only then can we ask the question that helps a breeder: What did this pedigree concentrate, and did it work?
What the Performance Records Can Tell Us
Before we read Josie’s LA, DHI, production, type, and PTA/ETA data, we need one piece of background.
Josie’s pedigree reaches farther back than the modern systems we use to evaluate dairy goats today. The modern Linear Appraisal program did not begin until 1988, and standardized DHI tracking did not become common until the late 1960s, though some herds tested earlier through extension or university programs. So, when I look at her oldest ancestors, I am not expecting them to have the same kind of records as modern goats. That means the absence of LA or DHI in the early pedigree is not a fault. It is a record limitation.
The better question is where the data begins to appear, how consistent it becomes, and whether the closer relatives support the traits we see in Josie herself.
For Josie, I am looking at four kinds of evidence.
Linear Appraisal tells me what kind of structure the family is producing: mammary system, general appearance, dairy strength, body capacity, feet and legs, rump width, udder depth, fore udder attachment, rear udder height, arch, medial support, and teat traits.
DHI and production records tell me where there is actual milk evidence. I want to know which does were tested, which families have production data, and whether milk, butterfat, and protein records support the dairy strength I see in the pedigree.
Type Evaluation helps connect appraisal data to genetic prediction. A goat’s own score tells me what that animal was. Type evaluation starts helping me ask what that animal may transmit.
PTA and ETA are where I slow down and pay close attention. A pretty pedigree can make a buck look wonderful, but PTA and ETA can tell a different story. They do not replace breeder judgment, but they keep me honest. If a buck is popular on paper but his predicted transmitting ability shows weakness in a trait I need corrected, I do not ignore that just because he is popular on paper. Bucks are not a one size fits all.
Reliability is part of that. A low-reliability PTA is not useless, but it carries more uncertainty. A higher-reliability PTA gives me more confidence that the number reflects a real transmitting pattern.
So the analysis is not “Josie scored 90, therefore breed her to anything fancy.”
The analysis is: Josie matured into an Excellent doe with a strong mammary system, useful width, and balanced overall structure. Her pedigree is heavily concentrated, so I need to know whether those strengths are family-supported or just a fluke (rarely is it a fluke, but environment counts for much more than many breeders give credit).
That is where LA, DHI, production, type, and PTA/ETA become useful. They help separate admiration from evidence.
What the Records Show by Era
Once the pedigree archive was clean, I started reading the records by era instead of treating all 3,772 goats the same, just for fun really and curiosity. A goat born in 1948 and a goat born in 2018 are not leaving the same kind of paper trail. That does not make the older goat less interesting. It just changes what I can fairly ask of the record.
The decade report found 28 goats from the 1940s, all of them in shared ancestry. That is history, not modern performance evaluation. There are also naming styles that feel very of the era: “Victory” in 1943, “Commando” during the World War II years, “King Phillip,” “Duke,” “Briton,” and “Rama.” Very 1940s: military, royal, classical, and farm-ledger practical all mixed together.
The 1950s are similar. Josie’s archive had 149 goats from the 1950s, and almost all were shared ancestry. Production evidence is still thin there. Only 29 showed production evaluation data, and only 2 showed lactation or DHI-related records. That does not mean the other goats didn’t put it in the pail. It means the modern record trail is not strong enough for me to make big claims from that decade alone.
The data starts becoming more useful in the 1960s. Josie’s archive had 813 goats from the 1960s, with 354 showing production evaluation data and 300 showing lactation or DHI-related records.
The 1970s and 1980s are where the production record trail becomes much more useful. The 1970s gave us 1,668 goats, with 1,330 showing production evaluation data and 1,279 showing lactation or DHI-related records. The 1980s gave us 752 goats, with 657 showing production evaluation data and 639 showing lactation or DHI-related records. Not every one of those goats has a full milk record sitting neatly in the archive, but the production side of the paper trail gets much stronger in those decades. Type data follows a different timeline because remember modern Linear Appraisal did not begin until late 1980s. A 1940s or 1950s goat isn’t going to show me the same appraisal record as a goat born in 2005. The type evaluation numbers pick up later, exactly where they should.
Once I separated the older record types from the newer ones, I also had to separate two different kinds of type evidence: a goat’s own final Linear Appraisal score and the Type AvgFS number that shows up in ADGA Genetics.
Those are not the same thing.
An individual LA score is the goat’s own score. That is the familiar FS90 EEEV kind of record. It tells me what that goat looked like when it was appraised.
Type AvgFS is different. It shows up in the Type Evaluation section. For bucks especially, this number is really useful because it reflects the average final score of evaluated daughters. So I do not read Type AvgFS as, “this buck scored 87.” I read it more like, “this buck had daughters averaging around 87.” That’s pretty powerful pedigree stuff!
Here it matters because the older part of Josie’s pedigree has a lot of Type Evaluation evidence but fewer individual appraisal scores. So that just means I have to read it correctly.
For goats with their own final LA scores, the modern part of Josie’s pedigree is strong. The 1990s-born group is small, but already good. The 2000s are where the pedigree really starts showing depth. That decade has the most individual scores, the highest scores, and a lot of goats scoring 90 or better. The 2010s keep that strength going.
The individual final score pattern looked like this:
1990s-born goats: 9 scored goats, average final score 88.78, range 80 to 92.
2000s-born goats: 58 scored goats, average final score 89.28, range 79 to 93.
2010s-born goats: 26 scored goats, average final score 89.73, range 82 to 92.
2020s-born goats: 2 scored goats, average final score 87.00, range 84 to 90.
The two highest individual scores I found were both 93-point does.
DESERT-WILLOW KE CK KAILIA scored 93 in 2009 at 8 years old. I love that detail because she did not just appraise high as a young doe and disappear. She had earlier scores of 92, 91, and 92. That tells me she held together and matured well, which is the whole point of Linear Appraisal. She retired at Lakeshore.
Kailia also passed quality forward. Two of her sons in Josie’s pedigree are evidence, J&R SPIRIT’S DAKOTA MAXIM and J&R SPIRIT’S DAKOTA PLAYBOY, both scored 90. Since they are bucks, I do not read those scores the same way I would read a 90-point doe with a mammary score. But it still tells me her structural quality did not stop with her.
KASTDEMUR’S TEMERITY also scored 93. Actually, she scored 93 more than once. She is not a direct ancestor in the same way a dam or granddam is, but she is connected through the same Kastdemur and Audacity family that sits behind Josie. So I do not treat her as one of Josie’s direct ancestors, but I do pay attention to her as family evidence. She shows what that branch was capable of producing.
Temerity also produced sons and daughters who scored in the 90s. Those particular offspring are not part of Josie’s direct line, but they still matter to me because they show Temerity was not just a pretty doe. She was part of a family that could keep reproducing high-scoring goats. That consistency is very Kastdemur!
That does not prove Josie was destined to appraise 90. Genetics is not a vending machine. But it does show that the modern part of her pedigree contains a lot of high-scoring, well-documented type evidence. So her score now feels less like a random surprise and more like something her recent family plausibly supports.
The old layers help tell us where the family came from: Longman’s, Hallcienda, Hurricane Acres, Goldthwaite, La Honda Springs, Evania, Naja, and the other old ghosts that still haunt Nubian barns.
The modern layers help tell us what the family has been proving: appraisal strength, production participation, lactation records, type evaluation, and the kind of mature doe structure we can still evaluate today.
For breeding decisions, I give the modern records more weight because they are closer to Josie and supported by better data. But I do not throw away the old layers. When an old herd or repeated ancestor keeps feeding into the modern high-performing lines, it becomes part of the inheritance trail.
Tracing Type Through the Close Pedigree
Now we can look at what structure appears to be coming through Josie’s close pedigree. Here, I am looking at mammary shape, general appearance, dairy strength, body capacity, rump, feet and legs, teat placement, teat diameter, udder height, udder depth, medial support, and the way those traits repeat through the close generations.
A final score gives the headline. The breakdown tells us what kind of goat produced that score.
Josie’s sire, J&M Hideaway PR Rio Grande, does not have his own Linear Appraisal score listed, so I cannot evaluate him as an appraised individual. With Rio, I have to read through the close family around him. His pedigree is concentrated through J & M Hideaway Farm PaulRevere and J&M Hideaway WWS Wildwest Riot, with repeated influence from Royal Blue Nevada Joe, Frog Flat Rosemary, Kastdemur’s Nevada City, Sweet-Spring PBC Berimargarita, Frog Flat Farm Blue Boy, Frog Flat Farm Nightengale, and Kastdemur’s LH Full Service. He is 14.93% inbred, with Royal Blue Nevada Joe and Frog Flat Rosemary as the largest individual contributors.
So with Rio, I am not saying, “Here is what he looked like.” But, “Here is what his close type family was concentrating.”
This is where the buck side and the Type AvgFS numbers become especially helpful.
I think of Type AvgFS as the “what did he tend to leave behind?” number. It is not perfect, and it is not a guarantee, but when a buck has a strong AvgFS and then I can see daughters or close descendants scoring well, I pay attention.
SWEET HARVEST SHOW TIME had a Type AvgFS of 89.1 and sired KASTDEMUR’S TEMERITY, who scored 93. That is the kind of connection I like to see.
KASTDEMUR’S DE EXHIBITIONIST had a Type AvgFS of 86.5 and sired DESERT-WILLOW KE CK KAILIA, who scored 93. Again, that is not just a number floating around on a page. That type showed up in a daughter.
KASTDEMUR’S CROWN EXCESS had a Type AvgFS of 86.1, and this one is especially interesting because he shows repeatability. He had daughters in this pedigree evidence scoring 92, 90, 89, and 88. One great daughter can happen. While several of his strong daughters tell me there is something there, this is one of those cases where a name tells us everything.
KASTDEMUR’S LH FULL SERVICE had a Type AvgFS of 86.7 and shows up behind high-scoring goats like SWEET-SPRING PBC BERIMARGARITA at 92 and KASTDEMUR’S AUDACITY at 91. He is one of the repeated older pieces behind the Kastdemur, Nevada City, and Berimargarita side of Josie’s pedigree. That gives me more reason to look at mature type and mammary strength as a family pattern, not just a single score.
ROYAL BLUE NEVADA JOE had a Type AvgFS of 87.7, and this is one I really care about because it ties into the J&M Hideaway side of the pedigree. His daughters include J&M HIDEAWAY FARM PATRIOT at 91, J&M HIDEAWAY FARM BASIL at 90, and J&M HIDEAWAY FARM ISABELLE at 90. That tells me the high-type evidence did not just stay back in the big-name Kastdemur and Lakeshore pieces. It moved forward into the part of the pedigree closer to Josie.
He helps explain why the J&M Hideaway side matters for type. Through Patriot, Isabelle, Basil, Goldstrike, Empress, and the Rio Grande side, I can see pieces of the same type story repeating: mature frame, dairy strength, mammary usefulness, and udders that stay functional.
His sire, J & M Hideaway Farm PaulRevere, gives us stronger close type evidence. PaulRevere scored FS92 (EEE) at 04-06. More important than the final score, he has daughter appraisal data: 10 daughters, 13 appraisals, an average daughter final score of 86.8, PTAFS 0.4, and reliability 60. That moves us beyond his own body and into what his daughters tended to show.
As a side note, this should tell you how important Linear Appraisal is in your herd and for potential buyers. Breeding without analysis is just guesswork.
PaulRevere’s daughter trait averages point toward useful mammary structure. His daughters averaged Fore Udder Attachment 33.2, Rear Udder Height 35.2, Rear Udder Arch 34.2, Udder Depth 32.5, Rump Width 31.8, and Medial Suspensory Ligament 24.5. His daughters averaged strong fore udder attachment, rear udder height, rear udder arch, rump width, and carried udder depth. That helps explain part of the sire-side pattern behind Josie: mature type, mammary quality, fore udder attachment, and a functional udder carried well above the hock.
PaulRevere’s medial suspensory ligament average was not the standout trait in that daughter group, so I would not describe him as the main source of Josie’s medial support. His teat placement data also leans toward the wider side of the scale, so teat placement is something I would note in the family pattern. That does not mean Josie herself has a teat placement problem. It means the close pedigree gives me a reason to actually compare the scores instead of assuming every famous ancestor improved every trait. Working backwards is a new game for me!
Two of PaulRevere’s daughters hold Elite Doe status. His sister, Patriot, who was also Josie’s granddam, was one of the most beautiful Nubians I have ever seen. She passed away last year, but her influence is still easy to see in her sons and daughters.
PaulRevere’s own appraisal history also shows maturity. He moved from FS84 as a yearling to FS89 at 02-03 and FS92 at 04-06. Josie also matured into a much stronger appraisal picture than her young score suggested. PaulRevere’s record gives a family example of type improving with age, not just a one-time score frozen early in life.
Rio Grande’s dam, J&M Hideaway WWS Wildwest Riot, is a very strong type anchor on the sire side. She scored FS91 (VEEE) at 05-04 and had three appraisals: FS85 at 02-04, FS88 at 03-03, and FS91 at 05-04. Her 2021 breakdown included strong rear udder height, useful rear udder arch, functional udder depth, and Excellent scores in dairy strength, body capacity, and mammary system.
Wildwest Riot’s type pattern connects clearly to Josie in mature dairy strength, mammary system, rear udder height, and functional udder carriage. Her appraisal is also a good reminder that linear traits are measurements, not grades. Riot measured narrower in teat diameter, while Josie appraised with more teat diameter.
The real lesson is broader: a repeated ancestor does not automatically reproduce every trait exactly. Josie is a good example of why I compare the ancestor’s Linear Appraisal to the goat in front of me instead of guessing from the pedigree alone. Also, mammary heritability is slower than structural. Something to keep in mind.
On the sire side, the pattern I see is mature type, mammary quality, dairy strength, rear udder height, fore udder usefulness, and a carried udder. The sire side also shows that I need to pay attention to teat placement, not because Josie’s current score is poor, but because the lines contain wider-placement influence that shouldnt be ignored.
The dam side gives a slightly different picture.
Josie’s dam, J&M Hideaway GS Empress, scored FS84 (GVVV) @ 04-02. Her final score is not as high as Josie’s, but the breakdown is more useful than the number alone. Empress had Stature 34, Strength 28, Dairyness 35, Rump Width 33, Fore Udder Attachment 34, Rear Udder Height 38, Rear Udder Arch 29, Medial 28, Udder Depth 36, Teat Placement 25, Teat Diameter 26, Body Depth 30, and structural categories GVVV.
That reads as a very dairy doe with useful rump width, strong fore udder attachment, high rear udder, and a very well-carried udder. Empress does help explain specific pieces of Josie: dairy quality, fore udder attachment, udder carried well above the hock, and overall mammary usefulness. Empress’s line points to rear udder height, udder depth, and udder carriage. Those are some of the pieces that make Josie’s mammary system functionally impressive. Empress herself shows that pattern, and her sire, J&M Hideaway Nevada Goldstrike, reinforces it through daughter data.
Goldstrike scored FS90 (VEE) at 04-05 and had type data from 4 daughter appraisals in 4 herds, with an average daughter final score of 84.8, PTAFS 0.1, and reliability 46. His daughter averages included strong dairyness, useful rump width, rear udder height, shallow and well-carried udder depth, and medial support. That supports the same dam-side pattern I see through Empress: dairy character, height and carriage to the udder, and useful mammary structure.
The rear udder arch story is more mixed. Empress herself was 29 for rear udder arch, and Goldstrike’s daughter average was 28. Not bad, but it does tell me rear udder arch is not the strongest repeated feature in that immediate dam line. There are ancestors behind Empress with stronger rear udder arch influence, but when I look at the close dam-side data as a group, the clearest repeated pattern is not “wide rear udder arch.” It is dairy quality, rear udder height, udder depth, and functional carriage.
What came through from Empress’s side appears to be dairy quality, fore udder attachment, udder height, carried udder depth, and overall mammary usefulness. What does not come through as cleanly, at least from the close dam-side records, is a consistently wider, more sweeping rear udder arch pattern.
When I put the close generations together, the type pattern becomes clearer.
Josie’s pedigree repeatedly supports dairy quality, mature type, mammary usefulness, fore udder attachment, rear udder height, and udders carried well above the hock. The sire side gives especially strong mature type through PaulRevere and Wildwest Riot. The dam side gives dairy quality, high rear udders, fore udder attachment, and udder depth through Empress and Goldstrike.
The places that need the most careful interpretation are not random, either. Teat placement shows up as something to read carefully in the close family, but Josie’s current teat placement is functional. Teat diameter also balanced differently in Josie than it did in some of her ancestors, so I would not call that a concern in her. Medial support is something I definitely want to protect, not something I would chase harder just to create more cleft. That girl has some serious cleft! Rear udder arch is the trait where the close pedigree gives the least consistent explanation, so that is the mammary detail I study most closely. It is also pretty obvious.
The Linear Appraisal read is this: Josie’s FS90 is not floating by itself. Her close pedigree shows a real type pattern behind her: dairy strength, mammary quality, fore udder attachment, rear udder height, udder depth, functional carriage, and mature balance. Her family also shows why pedigree work has to be paired with the actual goat. Some traits repeated clearly. Some traits balanced out differently in Josie. Some traits, especially rear udder arch, need more careful interpretation because the close family does not tell a simple one-trait story.
That is the value of looking backward. It does not just tell me which goats are famous. It tells me which traits actually seem to have traveled forward into the goat shadowing me.
Where the Milk Evidence Lives
Now that the type pattern is separated out, the next question is what the pedigree says about actual dairy production. DHI and production records answer a different question than Linear Appraisal. LA tells us about structure. DHI tells us what went into the bucket.
Before reading the numbers, I look at three things: lactations, PTA values, and reliability.
A completed lactation gives more useful evidence than a partial or incomplete record. PTA tells me what a goat is predicted to transmit for milk, fat, or protein. Reliability tells me how much confidence I should put in that PTA. A low-reliability number is not useless, but use it carefully. A higher-reliability number gets more weight because it is based on more information.
Percentile rank helps put the goat in context. A percentile rank of 88 means the goat is high in the evaluated group. A percentile rank of 32 or 37 means the available production evaluation is below average. That does not automatically make the goat poor. It tells me that, from the records available, I should not call that goat a production improver.
Just like with Linear Appraisal, I also have to read does and bucks differently.
For does, the production evaluation can include her own lactations, Average STD Milk, Average STD Fat, Average STD Protein, PPA, PTA, and percentile rank. That gives me some evidence of what she actually did in the milk room.
For bucks, the production evaluation is daughter evidence. With bucks, I care about how many herds, daughters, and lactations are behind the proof, plus the PTAs, reliability, and percentile rank. That tells me what his daughters tended to do.
Across Josie’s pedigree, the production paper trail is much deeper than the individual Linear Appraisal trail. That makes sense. Production records were being captured in useful ways before modern Linear Appraisal really took off. I found usable production evaluation evidence on 2,449 goats. Of those, 1,888 were does and 561 were bucks with daughter or progeny production evaluation. There were 1,322 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
The historical pattern was fun to put together and it is pretty clear.
The 1960s start showing production evaluation data, but a lot of those older records are still thin. The 1970s and 1980s are where the milk side gets much more useful.
By decade, the production evidence looked like this:
1960s-born goats: 291 goats with production evaluation evidence. Most were does, but only 9 had lactation counts greater than zero in the extracted records.
1970s-born goats: 1,252 goats with production evaluation evidence, including 979 does and 273 bucks. This is where the production paper trail really opens up. There were 623 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
1980s-born goats: 630 goats with production evaluation evidence, including 433 does and 197 bucks. There were 500 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
1990s-born goats: 175 goats with production evaluation evidence, including 124 does and 51 bucks. There were 116 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
2000s-born goats: 75 goats with production evaluation evidence, including 54 does and 21 bucks. There were 52 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
2010s-born goats: 25 goats with production evaluation evidence, including 15 does and 10 bucks. There were 21 goats with lactation counts greater than zero.
So the production story is different from the LA story. Linear Appraisal starts late because the system itself starts late. Production evidence starts showing up earlier and becomes very useful in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Average STD Milk numbers are interesting too, but I have to be careful with them. I do not want to average in blank or zero records and then pretend I learned something meaningful. This was actually my most time consuming part. When I look only at goats with actual Average STD Milk above zero, the production-backed goats in the modern layers are often very respectable, and some are much more than respectable.
A few does really stand out.
COLD COMFORT CABBAGE, born in the 1970s, had 4 lactations and averaged 5,123 pounds of standardized milk. Just wow!!
BRIARKNOLL CANDY’S CRICKET, born in the 1980s, had 4 lactations and averaged 3,902 pounds.
LAKESHORE-FARMS JUST TANGY, born in the 2000s, had 2 lactations and averaged 3,859 pounds.
CEDARSAGE CANDY O’ TRIPLE R, born in the 1970s, had 3 lactations and averaged 3,776 pounds.
DALE-HAVEN M.T. LAUREL, born in the 1990s, had 5 lactations and averaged 3,627 pounds.
Those are the kinds of records that remind me the old production side of the pedigree deserves respect. Even when the appraisal record is missing or thin, some of these goats were clearly part of serious milk families.
The buck side matters too, because bucks are where production either gets carried forward or quietly disappears.
BROWN SUGAR’S COUP DE GRACE had a Milk PTA of +223 based on 10 daughters and 17 lactations. That is an interesting positive milk signal, but the reliability was only 55, and the daughter base is not large compared with the more proven bucks in the pedigree. So I would read him as a useful clue, not as one of the heaviest production anchors.
J&R SPIRIT’S DAKOTA PLAYBOY is one of the more interesting production bucks in this pedigree because he had 40 daughters, 113 lactations, 20 herds, Milk PTA +175, Reliability 88, and Percentile Rank 85. That is strong evidence. He also scored 90 himself, so he is one of those goats where type and production evidence both deserve consideration.
WARPAINT ACRES SUPER BUCK had a Milk PTA of +154 with 179 daughters and 390 lactations across 81 herds. That is a big proof base, even if he is farther back in the pedigree. And, sheeesh, just look at that boy!
KISMET MARVINS SMOOTH OPERATOR (Frosty’s son) had 108 daughters, 241 lactations, 56 herds, Milk PTA +125, Reliability 96, and Percentile Rank 70. That is another useful buck for production context because the daughter base is large enough to take it seriously. I haven’t compared lately, but at one point he had sired more kids than any other buck. Right now, his record shows 571 registered progeny.
LAKESHORE ACE BELLAGIO had 34 daughters, 89 lactations, 11 herds, Milk PTA +74, Reliability 76, and Percentile Rank 77. He is closer to the modern pedigree and helps connect production evidence into the Lakeshore and J&M Hideaway side.
This is where I start asking the same question I asked with Linear Appraisal: does it actually translate forward? The answer is yes, but not as cleanly as type.
Josie’s close pedigree is easier to explain through type than through milk. Her FS90 has a very clear family pattern behind it. The production side is a little more mixed, and I wouldn’t want to oversell it.
In Josie’s close pedigree, the clearest production anchor is J&M Hideaway WWS Wildwest Riot. No surprise there. She had 5 lactations, with Average STD Milk 2199, Average STD Fat 130, and Average STD Protein 90. Her production PTAs are positive: Milk PTA 35, Fat PTA 10.0, and Protein PTA 3.5, with Fat and Protein Reliability 67. Her Percentile Rank 88 makes her the strongest close production record in this part of Josie’s pedigree.
Wildwest Riot gives Josie’s sire side real milk, butterfat, and protein evidence close up. She was not just a doe with a nice appraisal. She had multiple lactations and positive component data.
J & M Hideaway Farm Patriot also plays in here as part of the sire-side production story through Wildwest Riot. Patriot is not a huge milk-volume signal either, but she gives useful component support. Her production evaluation shows 5 lactations, Average STD Milk 2012, Average STD Fat 119, and Average STD Protein 85. Her Milk PTA is -25, but her Fat PTA is 7.7 and her Protein PTA is 1.2, with Reliability 68 and Percentile Rank 74.
That makes Patriot important because she helps explain why the Riot branch has real component credibility. She does not make that branch a milk-volume powerhouse by herself, but she does support butterfat and protein in a way that fits the larger pattern I see behind Josie.
J & M Hideaway Farm PaulRevere is more balanced, but not as strong for milk volume as Wildwest Riot. He had 13 daughters and 28 lactations in his production evaluation, with Milk PTA -20, Fat PTA 3.8, Fat % PTA 0.33, Protein PTA -0.1, Protein % PTA 0.05, Reliability 59, and Percentile Rank 59.
That tells me PaulRevere is not a major milk-volume improver, but he does have a positive fat signal and sits above the middle of the evaluated group. His production profile is more useful for components, especially butterfat percentage and Fat PTA, than for pushing milk volume hard.
So on the sire side, the production evidence is real, but it is not evenly spread across every trait. Wildwest Riot is the strongest milk-and-component anchor. Patriot adds butterfat and component credibility behind Riot. PaulRevere adds a moderate fat signal. This side of the pedigree gives Josie the strongest official production support close up.
The dam side is different.
J&M Hideaway GS Empress shows 1 lactation in the official evaluation, but she did not complete that lactation on milk test. That changes how I read the record. Her available evaluation shows Average STD Milk 440, Average STD Fat 16, Average STD Protein 17, with Milk PTA -46, Fat PTA -2.0, Protein PTA -0.6, Fat and Protein Reliability 37, and Percentile Rank 32.
Because that lactation was not completed and the reliability is low, I would not use Empress as proof against production ability. But I also would not use her as official production support. Her record is limited, incomplete, and below average in the available evaluation. On paper, Empress belongs more in the type and mammary-structure discussion than in the milk-strength column. BUT, I did not complete milk test with her, but I know her production average was higher than that official record makes it look. That is a good reminder that records are powerful, but they are still only records of what was actually captured. If the testing record is incomplete, the official evaluation can only work with what is there.
Little lesson: start milk test, complete milk test. That’s a permanent record in your herd.
Empress passed away last year from cancer and Josie’s baby this year looks so much like her grand dam. Bittersweetness.
J&M Hideaway Nevada Goldstrike also does not read as a production improver from the available numbers. His production evaluation includes 7 daughters, 7 lactations, Milk PTA -59, Fat PTA -0.7, Protein PTA -1.4, Reliability 50, and Percentile Rank 37.
That is moderate reliability, but the direction is not favorable for milk or components. I would not describe Goldstrike as adding production strength. His value in Josie’s close pedigree is more on the type and mammary-structure side than the milk side.
Side Note (I am just all over the place today, sorry): Goldstrike is a good example of why we should do breeding plans instead of stopping at titles. On paper, he has credentials: CH and *B. Some breeders see titles and stop there. But what does he actually add or subtract from the herd? Does he improve milk? Components? Mammary structure? General appearance? Does he also bring traits you need to manage carefully?
Goldstrike has 50 registered daughters, but his official production evaluation only includes seven daughters and lactations. That may not capture everything he was capable of producing, but it is the official evidence I can actually count. Based on those available records, I would not use him as my proof of production strength. You can see it too in his PTI21 at -15 and PTI12 at 4, so his production indexes do not point to him as a strong production improver. His ETA21 and ETA12 are positive, at 14 and 36, which fits better with the type value I see in this line. His value in Josie’s pedigree, for example, is easier to support through type and mammary structure than through milk improvement.
That does not mean the broader pedigree is empty of production. It means the production strength is more uneven and comes through different branches.
DESERT-WILLOW KE CK KAILIA is a good example of a goat who had both type and production value. She scored 93, and she also had 2 lactations averaging 3,005 pounds of standardized milk, with Milk PTA +95 and Percentile Rank 75. That is the kind of doe I love finding in a pedigree because she was not just one-dimensional.
KASTDEMUR’S TEMERITY also scored 93 and had 5 lactations averaging 2,567 pounds of standardized milk, with positive fat and protein PTAs. Her Milk PTA itself was only +4, so I would not call her a huge milk transmitter based on that number, but as an individual doe she combined elite type with real production records.
And then Kailia’s son, J&R SPIRIT’S DAKOTA PLAYBOY, becomes especially interesting. He scored 90, and his daughter production evaluation is strong: 40 daughters, 113 lactations, Milk PTA +175, Reliability 88, Percentile Rank 85. That tells me Kailia’s family did not just produce a 93-point doe. It also produced a buck whose daughters showed real milk strength.
That’s the kind of connection I am looking for.
Not every high-scoring goat is a milk goat. Not every production goat is a correct goat. But when I find both traits showing up in connected branches, I’m happy!
So close up, Josie’s production picture looks like this:
Wildwest Riot is the strongest production and component contributor.
Patriot strengthens the Riot branch with legitimate butterfat and component support.
PaulRevere gives moderate production evidence with a better fat signal than milk-volume signal.
Empress has incomplete, low-reliability production data and should not be used as an official production proof point.
Goldstrike’s production PTAs and percentile rank are below average, so he should not be treated as a milk improver.
That means Josie’s close pedigree has production evidence, but it is branch-specific. The strongest official milk and component evidence comes through the sire side, especially Wildwest Riot, with Patriot and PaulRevere adding useful component support. The dam side, through Empress and Goldstrike, gives more evidence for type, mammary structure, udder height, and udder carriage than for production strength in the official records.
So I would not say Josie’s pedigree is weak for production (she is putting about 8lbs in the pail). That is too harsh, and the records do not support it. I would say the production evidence is uneven. There is real milk and component strength close up, but it is concentrated more heavily through the sire side. The dam side is not empty of value, but its value is easier to document through type and mammary structure than through official production numbers.
If Josie is bred to a buck with excellent type correction but weak production proof, the mating may protect or improve mammary structure but fail to strengthen milk, fat, or protein. If she is bred to a buck with strong milk numbers but poor mammary support, the mating could sacrifice the functional udder traits that make her valuable.
For Josie, I would want the next buck to bring positive milk, fat, and protein evidence, preferably with enough reliability to trust the trend. I would especially like to see component strength, because Wildwest Riot gives a good fat and protein anchor, and Patriot gives added butterfat credibility, but the production story is not strong enough across all close branches to let production become an afterthought.
And that is probably the real lesson again. Pedigrees do not hand us one clean answer. They hand us patterns. Our job is to figure out which patterns are close enough, repeated enough, and documented enough to matter.
So, What Did Josie Inherit?
After all of that, this is where I land: Josie did not inherit one perfect package from one perfect goat. She is not the result of a single magic ancestor, and she is definitely not proof that every old name in a deep pedigree is still showing up on the barn. What she does look like is the result of several useful family patterns lining up at the right time.
The old pedigree layers give me history, herd context, and repeated background trends. I love those layers, obviously, because I am incapable of casually looking at an old Nubian pedigree like a normal person. But the close layers are where I put the most weight. That is where the appraisal records, production evaluations, daughter averages, PTAs, reliability, and actual goats I know start telling a more useful story.
For Josie, the clearest pattern is dairy quality. That does not surprise me after looking at Empress, Goldstrike, Wildwest Riot, and the J&M Hideaway side. Empress was very dairy. Goldstrike’s daughters averaged strongly for dairyness. Wildwest Riot finished Excellent in Dairy Strength as a mature doe. Josie fits that same picture. She is not a coarse doe who happened to score well. She is open, dairy, refined, and insanely supple.
The next pattern is mammary height and udder carriage. This is one of the strongest threads through the close pedigree. Empress, Goldstrike, Wildwest Riot, and PaulRevere all help explain why Josie has the udder height and carried udder depth that she does. The numbers are not identical from goat to goat, and they are not supposed to be. Genetics is not copy and paste. But the pattern is there: this family repeatedly supports udders held up where I want them, with useful fore udder attachment and enough mammary structure to stay functional.
That does not mean I can ignore mammary details. Rear udder arch is still something I want to improve. The close dam-side data is not as strong there, and Josie herself tells me the same thing when I look at her. Her udder has a lot to love, especially texture, height, carriage, and support, but I still want more width and sweep to the rear udder.
The third pattern is maturity. This one may be the part that changed how I see Josie the most. Her young appraisal did not tell the whole story, and she is not the only goat in this family who improved with age. PaulRevere went from FS84 as a yearling to FS89 at 02-03 and FS92 at 04-06. Wildwest Riot went from FS85 at 02-04 to FS88 at 03-03 and FS91 at 05-04. Josie’s own story follows that same kind of arc: a young score that was not the whole book, followed by a mature Excellent appraisal.
That does not mean every goat in this family should get a free pass until age five. Some goats are just not it, and we all know it. But it does make me more respectful of maturity patterns. Some goats need time before the pieces settle into place. Some breeders (hello) need patience.
The production inheritance is where I have to be the most careful. The pedigree does show real milk and component evidence, but it is not spread evenly enough for me to relax and assume production will take care of itself. The closer records point more clearly to type and mammary strength than to consistent milk improvement across every branch. So for Josie, production is not a weakness I am afraid of, but it is a trait I need to actively protect and strengthen.
That means I would not breed her as if scores answers every question. Her next buck still needs to bring his own production proof: positive milk, fat, and protein, preferably with enough daughter data or reliability that I can trust the direction. If I want Josie daughters to be complete dairy goats, milk and components have to stay part of the plan.
One of the most useful things I learned was that Josie needs a buck with good bone to balance her mammary system, especially her very prominent dairy skin and suppleness. That took me a bit to understand, because “supple” sounds like an automatic compliment. And it is a compliment. A soft, pliable, elastic udder is exactly what we want in a dairy doe. It usually points to dairy quality, milkability, and tissue that milks down well instead of feeling meaty or congested. Like I wrote earlier, you can have too much of a good thing. And, like most good traits, it still needs a framework around it.
A goat can tip too far into softness if that pliability is not backed by enough attachment, ligament, width, and structural substance. Then “supple” starts moving toward “loose.” The udder may still feel beautifully dairy, but over time the concern is whether it will stay held high, balanced, and useful through repeated lactations.
That is where bone and substance come in. More bone does not mean making her daughters coarse. It means adding enough skeleton under all that dairy quality so the next generation has structure to carry the udder, room for the mammary system, strength through the front end and feet and legs, and enough overall support to keep refinement from becoming fragility.
So I am not saying Josie needs bone corrected. Her score does not say she is weak or frail. Her Strength 33 and Rump Width 34 say the opposite. What I am saying is that her dairy refinement should be protected by breeding her to a buck with enough bone and substance to keep that same beautiful mammary quality functional over time. This is not really something the scores told me. This is appraiser experience balanced with my overly harsh judgement of her second freshening. Talk to your appraiser, ask questions! I was stumped about how to not push that udder too far and really did not connect the importance of bone in maintaining/balancing that suppleness. And, let me tell you, her udder feels like butter and she milks like a dream!
I want daughters who inherit Josie’s soft dairy udder, not daughters who inherit softness without the scaffolding (this is my new Josie motto…no softness without the scaffolding).
So, this is really the whole breeding lesson for me:
The traits Josie most clearly reflects are dairy quality, mammary suppleness, rear udder height, carried udder depth, fore udder usefulness, mature type, and enough width and strength to support an Excellent mature appraisal.
The traits I want to protect are udder texture, dairy character, overall balance, udder height, and functional support.
The traits I want to improve or keep a very close eye on are rear udder arch, teat placement, milk and components, and enough bone and substance to balance her refinement.
Josie did not inherit perfection. She inherited a strong set of workable pieces from a concentrated pedigree. Some of those pieces came through clearly. Some balanced differently in her than they did in her relatives. Some still need help from the next buck.
That is why this kind of pedigree work matters. I am not just breeding an FS90 doe. I am breeding a doe whose pedigree supports dairy quality, mammary usefulness, late maturity, and high, well-carried udders, while also telling me exactly where not to get lazy or careless.
So my buck order is pretty clear: a strong mammary structure, better rear udder arch, good medial definition, solid bone and substance, and real production proof for milk, fat, and protein. Protect what Josie does beautifully. Improve what still needs help.
That, more than anything, is what Josie’s appraisal taught me.
Ramblings on the Ghosts in Josie’s Pedigree
As I finish Josie’s deep dive, I sort of stopped thinking of her pedigree as a chart and started thinking of it as a time capsule. There were the modern names I expected to see: J&M Hideaway, Lakeshore, Kastdemur’s, Royal Blue, Frog Flat, Sweet-Spring. These are the goats close enough to Josie that they help explain the animal I see today: the dairy skin, the mammary height, the carried udder, the maturity, and the places I still need to correct.
But then the pedigree kept going.
And going.
And suddenly i was seeing goats born right alongside American history. Naja Tondalea was born the day U.S. Marines raised the flag on Iwo Jima. La Hondo Springs Mitzi Irise was born when the Bay of Pigs invasion began. Nel’s Jewell was born the day Malcolm X was assassinated. Fredricks Niccu Nioka was born the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Was someone in the kidding pen with Breckland Island Lady while Apollo 8 broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve? Foxfire Misty Flash was born the day Nixon announced he would resign. Dear Heart’s Pansy came into the world the day Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Kastdemur’s Crown Excess came along the day Bill Clinton was inaugurated as the first Baby Boomer president. These were not just goats in a pedigree. They were goats born into the fabric of American history and goats born as dairy goat breeding moved from handwritten barn records into the modern performance systems we use now.
Names fascinated me too. A deep pedigree is not just a genetic document. It is also a cultural one. People name goats out of the world they live in. Sometimes that shows up directly. Sometimes it shows up as fashion, humor, regional pride, herd identity, or whatever somebody thought sounded wonderful while standing in a barn with a newborn kid.
The older names often feel sturdy and straightforward: Loma Alto Brassy, Longman’s Barnaby Buck, Hallcienda Frosty Marvin, Tony of Evania, Hallcienda Noel, WillowNook Acres Nena. They feel like names from farm ledgers, show catalogs, and handwritten registration papers. Practical, personal, sometimes regal, sometimes plain as a coffee can feed scoop.
Then you start seeing names with a stronger sense of drama: La Honda Springs King Edward, La Honda Springs Napoleon, Volcanic Acres King Arthur, Pure Bred Acres AM M Conquest, Naja War Paint, Hallcienda Magic Garry. These names feel more theatrical. They pull from kings, conquerors, warriors, legends, and a very human desire to make a good goat sound like it belongs in a story. Josie’s extended pedigree includes La Honda Springs Napoleon, which made me ridiculously happy because Josie herself is Josephine, and her namesake Empress Josephine loved Napoleon.
And because goats apparently enjoy a well-placed historical Easter egg, Josie also has Royale’s Miss Gi Gi in her line. Josie’s daughter this year is GiGi, formally Hortense Eugénie Cécile Bonaparte, named for Empress Josephine’s daughter and Napoleon’s stepdaughter. I did not plan that pedigree connection, but I will absolutely enjoy it. A little historical symmetry in a goat pedigree? Yes, please.
Some names feel tied less to formal history and more to the American imagination of the time: Wild West Showdown, Dakota Playboy, Goldstrike, Nevada City, Royal Blue Nevada Joe. Those names have a Western, ranchy, frontier flavor. They sound like dust, silver mines, old rodeo posters, and someone leaning hard into American place identity. That does not mean they were named because of one specific event, but they absolutely reflect the cultural language breeders were using.
That is the fun part. I see time periods talking through naming styles. Earlier names are often simpler or more formal. Mid-century and later names start to carry more herd branding, more mythology, more place names, more personality. By the modern era, names become more layered: herd prefix, sire reference, family joke, show-ring flair, and sometimes a whole little story packed into one registered name.
A goat name is never just a goat name. It tells you something about the breeder, the herd, the era, the animal’s family, and sometimes the hopes attached to that kid. Someone looked at a newborn and thought, “This one is Napoleon,” or “This one is Miss Gi Gi,” or “This one is Wild West Showdown.” And then, decades later, I am sitting here happily with Josie’s pedigree because the names still have life in them.
Of course, the genetics still have to come first. A beautiful old name though isn’t responsible for Josie’s genetics. Distant ancestors are usually part of the historical background unless they repeat often, come forward through important branches, or connect to measurable performance evidence. That is where the geneticist brain has to gently remove the historian brain from the old registry books and remind her to look at the data.
But honestly, both brains are useful.
The geneticist tells me what I can responsibly say about inheritance.
The genealogist tells me why the story is worth telling.
Josie’s story is not just that she appraised well, though yeah, I will probably be delighted about that forever. Her story is that she matured into herself in a way her close pedigree helps explain. Her mammary quality, rear udder height, dairy character, and carried udder did not appear out of thin air. They came through generations of breeder choices, some recent enough to analyze through LA, DHI, PTA, and ETA, and some old enough to feel like ghosts in the barn.
That is what this deep dive gave me.
Not a reason to think Josie is perfect.
Not a reason to ignore her faults because I love her.
Not a reason to worship old names on paper, though some of those names carry weight .
It gave me a clearer understanding of the goat I already adored.
It helped me see where my barn blindness was fair, where my criticism was too harsh, and where the data quietly said, “Look again.”
Josie is still my Velcro goat. My shadow. My heart goat.
But now she is also a living thread in a much older story, one that runs through modern herds, old Nubian families, milk records, appraisal sheets, repeated ancestors, royal names, Western names, barn jokes, and names written down long before she was born, before I was born.
That is why I get lost in this work. I love running (usually much shorter!) analyses on my goats and if you know me, I’ve probably flooded you with the same on your goats too. I can’t help myself.
Because somewhere between the numbers and the ghosts,
the goat starts making more sense.
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