Can you really have too much "Nick" genetics?

It all started with Sunboy Stanton 149, better known as Nick.

Can you really have too much of a good thing? I didn’t think so until one day I realized my Kiko herd’s family tree was pretty much one big limb from the Sunboy Stanton 149 “Nick” bloodline. I first used Nick, a Moneymaker son, in 2005. Thirteen years later, his bloodline still runs deep in the Egypt Creek gene pool.

It wasn’t an intentional strategy. I was just keeping the best bucks as replacement sires and I ended up with all Nick grandsons. But it all started with a couple of exceptional Nick daughters.

In 2005 we flushed my JTV Klondike daughter, JTV Queen, to Nick. We implanted some embryos and froze others. From the first crop of kids, we got ECR Hanky Panky in 2006. That fall we implanted some of the frozen embryos and got ECR Princess Nicki in 2007 — a full sister to Hanky Panky but a year younger.

ECR Rusty's Rambo

In 2008, in partnership with Bill and Brenda Moore, we flushed Hanky Panky to TAY Onyx semen. From that kid crop came BBM Hanky Panky’s Y266, born in 2009. HP, as we called him, served us well for many years and we have a supply of semen that we are using.

In 2010, Hanky Panky delivered a pair of buck kids sired by ECR Rusty. We kept one of those — ECR Rusty’s Rambo, who is still our senior herdsire at 8 years old. 

ECR Powerstroke

In the meantime, little sister Nicki was busy having boys, too, and these have been too good to sell. At the moment, we have these Nicki sons in the buck pen:

• ECR Powerstroke, born 2015, sired by BBM Hanky Panky’s Y266 (his mom’s nephew).

• ECR Rustnick, born 2017, sired by ECR Rusty’s Rambo (another nephew — Rambo and HP have the same mother).

• ECR Bunker and ECR Fort Knox, born 2018, sired by RDH Out of the Blue (an outcross that we nicknamed “Handsome”).

So, yes, we have four Nicki sons — for a total of six Nick grandsons in the lineup — two of them, Powerstroke and Rustnick, are double-bred Nick! We probably would have had another Nicki son, ECR Slash, born in 2016, but he disappeared and was presumed killed by coyotes.

This year I decided it was time to bring in some new blood to help Handsome bring some diversity to our genetics. 

ECR Rustnick

Earlier this summer I stumbled upon a buck that was owned and raised by Shane Hesterman of Deep South Kikos in Brooklyn, Miss. DSK Yukon is a 2016 buck that has a lot of old genetics close up in his pedigree — and nearly all are an outcross to everything on my ranch. Names like CPK Rooster Cogburn, ELH Blue Boy, WMB Sasquatch, AAS Goldmine I and Tasman Zorro. Plus he’s meaty and tough as nails. Shane has been culling hard ever since he started raising Kikos and Yukon is proof he’s doing it right.

ECR Bunker

We also acquired one of the 2018 flush bucks from  Kendell and Dana Barnes’ Chey-View Kikos in Winchester, Ky. He’s out of CVK June II and semen from performance-proven MGR Titan’s Hammer. We named him Hammerhead.

In this year’s West Virginia buck performance test, Hammerhead finished 9^thoverall and one of his flushmates finished 12^th. Their dam, June II, is out of  LRF Pango Hua and AVG June. This cross produced a Top 10 buck on the 2013 Maryland test. 

We think these two new bucks, in combination with our Nick grandsons, will give us the genetics we need to move into the future.

ECR Fort Knox

Our first outcross buck, RDH Out of the Blue

CVK Hammerhead

DSK Yukon

Here's a slick trick for unsticking a pup's head

Usually it's a goat's head that I have to get unstuck out of a fence. This time it was a guardian dog puppy. Somehow he managed to get his big head through a 4 x 4 gate panel. Nothing seemed to work and I didn't want to cut the panel, so I poured vegetable oil on his head to get it all greased up. Then I grabbed his back legs and worked his body and head back and forth. It didn't take much effort for the head to slide out. And the pup's littermate enjoyed cleaning his head off. That vegetable oil was a real treat!

This puppy's head is firmly stuck in the gate.

First, grease it up with vegetable oil.

Once the head was greased up, a little backward pressure finally freed his head.

Kikos a natural fit for eastern half of U.S.

By Terry Hankins

Reprinted from Goat Rancher, May 2007

The Kiko breed of goat, long overshadowed by the popular and pretty Boer goat, is starting to make serious inroads into the meat goat industry. This growth in prominence is most notable in the Southeast and Midwest, where kids with Kiko influence can be seen at local meat goat sales on a regular basis. Kikos, however, still are a rare sight in the Texas Hill Country and points farther west, although a handful of producers are using Kiko bucks on their Spanish does to increase milk production and on Boer percentage does to tighten up udder problems.

Back east, producers have learned that Kikos can be raised in a hot and humid climate a lot easier than Boer goats can. It’s not that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with Boer goats, they just weren't made to thrive where pastures get 50-60 inches of rain a year and there are no rocks. Boers were bred up over the last 80 years in South Africa, where most of the country gets less than 20 inches of rain a year, about the same rainfall as San Angelo. You can raise Boer goats just about anywhere, but they really thrive in areas basically west of Interstate 35. A glance at the accompanying map puts it into stark perspective. East of Dallas, lots of rain — west of Dallas, very little rain. This difference in climate is why the Boer and Kiko perform so differently. The Kiko was developed from feral goats in New Zealand, where annual rainfall can run to more than 100 inches on both the South Island and North Island. Only the east coast of the South Island has a scarcity of rainfall. The development of the Kiko in this temperate climate with high humidity, soggy ground and parasites galore made it the perfect goat for places like Mississippi, for instance, where I have been raising them since 1997.

Like many folks I jumped on the Boer bandwagon early on. But it took me only one kidding season to realize I had to do something drastically different. First, I had to learn more about goats. And failing that, I had to find a goat that could survive my management — or lack thereof. In the summer of 1996 I launched Goat Rancher and hit the road promoting the new publication. One of my first stops was the American Boer Goat Association National Show, which was held in Tyler, Texas, that year. In addition to seeing my first real Boer goats, Jacques Valley of nearby Athens, Texas, had a booth set up promoting his Kiko goats. Jacques and his wife, Therese, were among the first serious producers and promoters of this New Zealand import. They were some of the first to advertise their Kikos in Goat Rancher, along with Steve and Sylvia Tomlinson of Caston Creek Ranch in Oklahoma, Frank and Mary Dyson of Robinson, Texas, and An Peischel of Goats Unlimited, which was located in northern California at the time. The more that I talked to these producers, the more interested I became in the Kiko, especially after I lost 24 Boer percentage kids and 10 does to parasites in one spring. So I began seeking more information on this new wonder goat.

In the March 1997 issue of Goat Rancher, I ran the first major article about Kikos. The cover story was an interview with Kiko importer Graham Culliford that was written by Sylvia Tomlinson, who by then had joined Goat Rancher as a monthly columnist. Later that year, I visited Frank and Mary Dyson's Sunset Place Kikos just outside of Waco, home of the famous bucks Money Maker and Generator. In the August 1997 Goat Rancher I published my article on Sunset Kikos — and that same year, my cousin and I went together and bought our first Kiko buck from the Dysons, a 1-year-old son of Moneymaker, for $1,000.

Longtime Goat Rancher readers will remember my many articles about those first kids out of Sunboy III, or as we called him, King Tut. We still didn’t know much about raising goats, so we just turned Tut out with a herd of black Spanish nannies. We didn't see much action during breeding season, but come the spring of 1998, we had little white kids running everywhere. My cousin, Joe, and I didn’t know what to expect. We went to the pasture with our towels and Nutri-Drench, items we had needed the year before when little weak kids started dropping out of two dozen anemic mothers. This year was different, however. We couldn’t catch the kids to give them the Nutri-Drench, so we finally decided they didn’t really need it. We didn't find any weak, wet kids, so we just sat back and enjoyed watching the healthy kids play. We tried to catch the kids so we could eartag them and try to keep up with who was whom — which was becoming difficult since all the does were solid black and all the kids solid white. We couldn't even do that. We finally got the whole herd of mommas and babies into a catch-pen. We then tagged all the kids, not knowing who they belonged to. Then we turned them all loose, and over the next few days, we watched and took notes as we observed which kids nursed which moms.

Those first kids grew up with a bare minimum of attention, medication, deworming — and feed. We didn't lose a single kid that spring. They grazed all summer and we put out rolls of hay in the winter. There was no such thing as a sack of goat feed in Mississippi at that time, so we put out a few molasses tubs and range cubes made for cattle. Although I was still raising Boer goats, it was becoming apparent that with my work and travel schedule, Kikos were going to fit better in my ranching situation. So I started taking steps to increase my Kiko herd and moving from an unregistered meat goat operation to a registered breeding stock enterprise.

I got my first two purebred Kiko does from Jo Ann and Brinson Taylor of Valdosta, Ga., who, ironically, had first read about Kikos in the Goat Rancher. I added two more does from Jacques and Teri, another nanny with a doe kid from the Tomlinsons, and over the years I have purchased three does from Dr. An. These nine purebred Kiko does were so long-lived and prolific that every buck and doe on my farm and the dozens I have sold over the years, are descended from them. Plus I still have three of those original does on the ranch — two of An's does (ages 5 and 8) and one of Jacques', JTV Queen, a Klondike daughter who had her 9th birthday and a set of twins in April.

I still have several dozen Boer percentage does on the farm. They definitely are an example of survival of the fittest, although they do require regular deworming. They run with the Kikos, and some of them are the most aggressive browsers I have. It helps when a 200-pound nanny leans on a tree and the rest of the herd is able to join in the feast.

When we work our goats, we squeeze them into an alleyway where we can easily check their eyelids for signs of anemia. In most cases the Kikos and Kiko percentages score 1 to 2 on the FAMACHA chart throughout the summer. The Boer percentages consistently score higher. This dramatic difference in parasite resistance — or parasite tolerance — is the greatest benefit of the Kiko from an economic standpoint. It is costly and labor-intensive to deworm on a regular basis, plus it just creates a new generation of resistant parasites. The loss of life from parasite infestation has cost me thousands of dollars over the years. I have talked to many producers that have had experiences like I did trying to raise Boers outside their natural environment. You can do it, but you have to really work at it. If you have hardy Boers, hang onto them. I have settled on Kikos. Through my years of experience, they have risen to the top of my list as the easiest goats to raise, the cheapest to maintain, and these days they sell for a whole lot more than my Boers ever did.

History of Egypt Creek Ranch Kikos

By Terry Hankins

I purchased my first goats (Nubians) in 1985 to clear blackberries bushes off a small farm in north Alabama but it wasn’t until a decade later that I took a real interest in these animals. Meat goats first caught my interest when I was an agribusiness columnist for the daily newspaper in Jackson, Miss. An article that I wrote in 1995 on a new meat goat co-op created an unusual amount of interest. I figured there might be something to this new meat goat industry.

One thing led to another and I left the newspaper business and became a magazine publisher/goat rancher, a job I’ve enjoyed since 1996. Like many folks I jumped on the Boer bandwagon early on. But it took me only one kidding season to realize I had to do something drastically different.

In the summer of 1996 at the American Boer Goat Association National Show in Tyler, Texas, I met Jacques Valley of Athens, Texas, who had a display set up promoting his Kiko goats.

Jacques and his wife, Therese, were among the first serious producers and promoters of this New Zealand import. Later I also met Steve and Sylvia Tomlinson of Caston Creek Ranch in Oklahoma; Frank and Mary Dyson of Sunset Place Kikos in Robinson, Texas; and Dr. An Peischel of Goats Unlimited, which was located in northern California at the time.

The more that I talked to these producers, the more interested I became in Kikos, especially after I lost 24 Boer percentage kids and 10 does to parasites in one spring. So I began seeking more information on this new wonder goat.

In July 1997, I visited Frank and Mary Dyson at their farm just outside of Waco, home of the famous bucks Money Maker and Generator. My cousin, Joe Luther, and I went together and bought our first 100% New Zealand Kiko buck from the Dysons, a 1-year-old son of Moneymaker, for $1,000. We turned our new buck, Sunboy 111 (nicknamed King Tut) in with a herd of black Spanish nannies. We didn't see much action during breeding season, but come the spring of 1998, we had little white kids running everywhere.

Joe and I didn't know what to expect. We went to the pasture with our towels and Nutri-Drench, items we had needed the year before when small, weak half-Boer kids started dropping out of two dozen Nubian mothers. This year was different. We couldn't catch the kids to give them the Nutri-Drench, so we finally decided they didn't really need it. We didn't find any weak, wet kids, so we just sat back and enjoyed watching the healthy Kiko kids play.

Those first kids grew up with a bare minimum of attention, medication, deworming or feed. We didn't lose a single kid that spring. They grazed all summer and we put out rolls of hay in the winter. There was no such thing as a sack of goat feed in Mississippi at that time, so we put out a few molasses tubs and range cubes made for cattle.

Although I was still raising Boer goats, it was becoming apparent that with my work and travel schedule, Kikos were going to fit better in my ranching situation. So I started taking steps to increase my Kiko herd and moving from an unregistered meat goat operation to a registered breeding stock enterprise. I went to the friends I had made in the Kiko business to purchase my foundation animals. From Jacques & Teri I added two 100% New Zealand Klondike daughters (JTV Queen and JTV Nina). From the Tomlinsons at Caston Creek I purchased three New Zealand does: a Money Maker daughter (Sunkist 113, a flushmate of King Tut), her doe kid out of JTV Hercules (CCR Anastasia), and a Goatex Generator daughter (CCR Sara 812).

For my purebred herd (94-99%), I purchased a purebred Money Maker son (CCR Xcelerator) from the Tomlinsons, three does from Dr. An and two from Jo Ann and Brinson Taylor of Valdosta, Ga.

These ten purebred and New Zealand Kiko does were so long-lived and prolific that every buck and doe on my farm for the next decade descended from them. One of the Klondike daughters, JTV Queen, had a set of twins on her 9th birthday. Xcelerator lived to be 11. Rusty is 13 and enjoying his retirement.

In 1999 we purchased AAS Goldmine II. We added Southwest Cisco in 2001.

The crossing of these genetics - Money Maker, Klondike, Goldmine and Southwest Cisco - gave us the foundation on which we are still building today. Money Maker gave us the meatiness, Klondike the frame, Goldmine the width and depth and Southwest Cisco the extreme hardiness and parasite tolerance.

Some of our best-known offspring came from these genetics, including:

* ECR Rusty (Southwest Cisco x JTV Nina)

* ECR M2 (Goldmine II x CCR Sara 812)

* ECR M4 (Goldmine II x JTV Queen)

* ECR Gloria (Goldmine II x Sunkist 113)

* ECR Black Gold (quadruplet brother of Gloria)

* ECR Samurai Jack (Southwest Cisco x Sunkist 113)

Within the last 10 years, we have sought to bring in more outside bucks to cross with our foundation does. In 2005 we invited Bill and Brenda Moore of BBM Kikos to bring their Money Maker son, Sunboy Stanton 149, better known as "Nick", to our embryo flush to cross with JTV Queen and ECR Gloria. These matings produced numerous "keepers", including Queen's ECR Hanky Panky.

The "Nick" x Gloria kids turned out to be some of the best Kikos we had ever produced. Kids from this mating were featured in our first production sale, held in Bowling Green, Ky., in August 2006. The nine highest-selling Kikos in the sale all were flushmates out of the Nick x Gloria mating. Kids and grandkids from this pairing are found on many prominent Kiko ranches and have performed well in several buck performance tests.

In 2007 we again went to Bill and Brenda Moore to borrow another buck, SKY S408 Sports Kat, an extremely meaty Kiko buck. In 2008, out of the doelings I chose as additions to my own herd, 75 percent of them were Sports Kat daughters.

In 2008 our breeding program took a totally unexpected turn. Chris Luton of Boulder Hill Farm in Stendal, Ind., announced he was dispersing his herd because of health reasons. Chris had bought out Jacques and Teri Valley when they retired and had spent eight years developing his own herd. Chris had a reputation for producing big, framy bucks that were popular throughout the Midwest. I acquired six bucks that represented different bloodlines he had been developing. In one purchase, Egypt Creek Ranch had acquired some of the best bucks in the country that also were outcrosses to most of my does.

In 2009 when Bill and Brenda Moore announced their retirement from the goat business, I moved our remaining partnership does from Georgia to Mississippi. I still maintain the BBM herd and prefix here at Egypt Creek.

As Egypt Creek Ranch begins its 20th year in the Kiko business, we hold true to the values we developed two decades ago: invest in good stock, raise Kikos that others are proud to own, keep overhead costs to a minimum and above all else let your goats be goats.

Kiko doe raises kids despite broken leg

CVK Sally II cleans up and nurses her kids while
her broken leg (left rear) dangles uselessly.

On January 30 my grandson Rylan and I were working goats. We were running them through the “tub” and into the alleyway so we could FAMACHA and just give them a good looking over. One very pregnant nanny who has never been a problem before decided she would jump out of the catch pen this time. She didn’t quite make it and her left rear leg got caught in the top rail. When her weight hit the ground, that leg bone snapped with a sickening pop.

It was one of those scenes where you see it happening in slow motion but you are frozen and there is nothing you can do except watch … knowing what’s about to happen. I cussed the goat as she ran down the hill, favoring that left leg as her foot dangled and whirled like an airplane propeller. The bone was cleanly broken but the skin was intact. I debated whether to splint her or shoot her.

I was able to get her into a small corral. After watching her for awhile, I decided she was too heavy and too wild to try and splint. I didn’t want to carry her to the vet. I decided I would keep her penned up and hope for the best. Hopefully she would have her kids and I could bottle feed them or graft them onto another mother.

I had heard of broken legs healing themselves, but I didn’t know about a break this severe. I also know that splinting a leg was not always successful. I once had a buck die from infection after we splinted his leg. Another Kiko producer told me her goat’s leg actually rotted off from infection. In many situations, it’s just hard (or impossible) to catch a wild goat and keep the bandaging cleaned for the amount of time it takes for a broken leg to heal. I decided my best course of action was to leave it to nature. She would either heal or not.

A week later the leg was still dangling, swaying with every step she took. She didn’t seem in pain and she was eating good. When I checked on her the afternoon of February 5, I discovered she had kidded — triplets. One doe kid looked like it was born dead but there was another healthy doe and a buck kid. The mother had cleaned them up and they already were nursing … as she stood there on three legs.

Less than a month later, the leg has healed. There is a knot where the break occurred and her lower leg is a little crooked, but she can put her entire weight on the leg and as you can see in the accompanying video, she gets around pretty good. She is successfully raising her two remaining kids.

I’m still not ready to turn her out in the big pasture with the other goats. She has done so surprisingly well so far, I don’t want to risk her re-injuring it with all the hills, ditches, fallen trees and bullies in the pasture. I figure in a couple more weeks she’ll be as good as new. Just another example of a good goat that was healthy enough to heal herself and raise her kids.

This doe is a 4-year-old 100% New Zealand Kiko that Mary McDonald and Sandy Rittenhouse of Rittenhouse Kikos purchased last year at the Southeast Kiko Goat Association sale in Perry, Ga. (http://www.sekga.us) and brought here to Egypt Creek Ranch where I manage their herd. CVK Sally II was born at Chey-View Kikos in Kentucky. She is a TAY 007 granddaughter on the top and a JTV Goliath granddaughter on the bottom — some old genetics that have stood the test of time. In my opinion, she has endured the ultimate performance test. She’ll have a home here for as long as she wants it. Just don’t be jumpin’ any more fences!