Online Chatter is an area where we can post some of the emails and items posted about Sables on various Email Discussion Lists.

Honey Acres Dairy Goats

Purebred & American Saanens.....and Sables

http://honeyacres.homestead.com/index.html

Is the fear of them being in an AOP class competing against Saanens reason enough not to recognize them? Wouldn't competing against Nigerian Dwarves be even odder?

I cannot see this "reason" as being anything logical. Please, Todd, would you care to elaborate?

I had to compete against Oberhaslis in an AOP class this year and it wasn't reason enough to discredit either the Saanens or the Oberhaslis.

After having read all of the responses, I am wondering why the name Sable came up. I think of Sable as referring to a very dark animal rather than just an off colored Saanen. I have seen animals that are considered Sable that are not dark but are silver or kind of toggy cou-blanc like a well known line os Prebred French Alpines from a few years back! But if the Sables folks are happy with it, more power to them.

It seems really implausible for an animal that is white to be born to two animals that are colored. If we are considering cream or off white as a "color" then perhaps two cream animals could produce such a white animal, but only because the cream animals are probably genetically white.

As far as the ridiculous and insulting statements about Americans being responsible for color, all I can say is that I have seen a number of colored animals in purebred herds. The color might not be a dramatic as the (beautiful) animals that Klisse Foster owns (and intentionally breeds, I might add), but they include dark facial stripes, cream that is nearly tan or pink, and also the odd dark animal.

I say give the Sable folks the room they want and need to create a new breed. I wish them luck, and hope that they can achieve more uniformity of performance than the rest of us have.

How can anybody, when looking at the photographs of animals like Klisse Foster's doe, Triumph, think this animal is any less than the purebred, pure white doe that stands at the bottom of a Saanen class? Come on!

There is so much room for all of us to create and develop what we want. With or without the blessing of the NSBA or ADGA, progressive breeders with a calling to march to the beat of a different drummer will find a way to do so. We need to give these people all the room and support they can use. To support the creation of new breeds is to support Dairy goats in general.

What happens when those Sable does in the separate herd book have white offspring? Are they going to be white sables? Or will they be brought back into the Saanen herdbooks. I'm new to goats, but from what I've heard, one of the problems is that the Sables do not breed true. It's my understanding that the color gene is a bit of a rogue. Is that what you've found?

I would hope that some rule would be stated once you go Sable you can not go back. In other words White sables would have no room to go back into the Saanen gentics infact Alpine Gentics to of course these are my feelings,and As far as the Rougue gene , Its seems in my limmited experince that, the IN Alpine type terms The Cou BLancs or Cou Nairs and such , seem to breed true its the solids, like Solid Black that seems Rogue. In time of course as these Color genes are more compounded, White Sable i belive willbe a After thought in due time.

If I am not mistaken, the white of the Saanen is a dominant gene which masks the underlying color dictated by the color genes, which are separate fromthat gene which produces white. Cats have a similar situation, though they have two types of genes which can produce white. Under this situation, any Saanen can be either Ww or WW. If they are Ww they CAN produce a colored offspring. If they are WW, they cannot, no matter what they are bred to.

Those Ww's would produce color 50% of the time, if bred to a colored animal, and 50% white even if bred to color. You must realize, however, that that is a statistical probability and, just as in flipping a penny, there can be a long string of one outcome before the other outcome presents itself.

Statistically, one would have to get up to probably 1000 outcomes before the 50/50 ratio would present itself. Similarly, two Ww animals bred together would have a 25% likelihood of producing color - though they may never actually do that - the possibility would be there.

 What happens when those Sable does in the separate herd book have white offspring? Are they going to be white sables? Or will they be brought back into the Saanen herdbooks. I'm new to goats, but from what I've heard, one of the problems is that the Sables do not breed true. It's my understanding that the color gene is a bit of a rogue. Is that what you've found?

The Saanen breed standard has always allowed only white and cream (although now, it would seem, most folks think the cream animal inferior). So it really doesn't make sense that people would buy an off colored Saanen thinking the color alone made her a better animal.

Saanens are white or cream period. All of these other-colored does should be utilized elsewhere, and creating a separate registry for them sounds like a great idea and a nice way to keep the colored genes from influencing the white lines too much more. I would suspect, however, that if extrememly conscientious breeders work with the does of color, that a remarkable breed will develop, as culling will not be based on color! Just think of the genepool that will be available, much as we have seen with the American Saanen over the "purebred".

I feel that if Saanen breeders do not like the nonwhite and non cream animals, they should be much in favor of creating a completely different breed so as to be assured that there is no confusing the Saanen and the "miscolored" cousin.

There are some beautiful Sables out there. To see them used in an upgrading program toward becoming Alpines or anything else doesn't make as much sense as putting them in their own category. Breeders who care enough to take the uphill battle probably do not care if they are in AOP classes for a while; surely it is a step in the right direction for them!

I once heard a long time Saanen breeder (who only ever had white animals) say "there are a lot of reasons to like Saanens aside from just the color". I agree.

Other livestock industries have used such genetic non-conformity to create new and very important breeds. Look at the Red Angus, the Red and White Dairy Cow, the Drysdale sheep, etc.

I have white Saanens, and I started with white Saanens because I like them. I have no problem with people who want to have colored animals removed from our ranks and used in the foundation of another breed. We need more breeds of dairy goats with more specific breed characteristics. It would be nice to see a Swiss-type breed that could boast not only color conformity but consistency of performance such as 4% butterfat and 3.5% protein. It would be nice to see a breed that is truly acclimated to a specific geography or management system.

In surveying livestock from progressive livestock-industry countries, it is evident that many countries and industries have created numerous breeds to fit a number of situations and to fill a number of needs. Here in the US we have only created the American La Mancha, a wonderful breed with very specific type and performance parameters. I do not see why purists are threatened by progress, why Saanen breeders should oppose the creation of a new breed.

There is a place for a large, tall , strong, calm, doe who can milk a lot and be non-white. It might not be in your herd, but somebody will definitely want her, and should be entitled to develop specific (hopefully performance) criteria by which she should be judged.

I think it is nice to have AOP Classes for shows. It allows people to show & win a championship leg, when there are not enough of one breed to justify a seperate breed sanction.

Regardless of what breeds we show against,when it comes down to it, Best in Show, we are competing against all the different Breeds anyway. Conformation is the same for all breeds, with breed charactericts added on. We learn to crawl before we walk, learn towalk before we can run. This is true anytime we create a new breed of anything. There will always be discention from people. I see this all the time in the dog world. They don't feel we need any more breeds. If we didn't have farsighted people, we wouldn't have electricity & airplanes, phones, etc.

I would like the sables to have their own herd book & their own breed. The purebred saanen is an indangered species as is. Soon there will be only Americans anyway. I see the sable as speedily increasing the demise of the purebred, by pointing out the color in their lines. Will encourge people not to use these lines. Color was introduced more in the purebred & American by people wanting to introduce color to create Sables. Thinking they

would make big bucks ($$$) on Sables.