CEO's Message

Message from the CEO

What is the deal with the ABGA’s DNA data base? Let me start from the beginning, the ABGA simply starts the process by taking payment and setting you up with a test kit, which is the paper work you need to include with the goat hair sample you are sending directly to UC Davis. As a rule about a week after your sample arrives at UC Davis the ABGA receives a Goat Parentage and Genetic Marker Report back from the lab. This is the same report that we mail to the member that originally filed for the test. Given the animal’s result and pedigree align, the animal is credited as being DNA tested and a copy of the report is stored in our records.

Note you submitted directly to our third party testing facility and the result is 100% dependent on the sample you submit to them. UC Davis maintains the complete DNA records as well as the actual samples for a reasonable time. There is no giant computer at the ABGA that computes DNA results for you.

How does the ABGA utilize this DNA data? Currently, when progeny of a tested animal are submitted for DNA testing a parentage exclusion test is ran yielding a qualifying statement. For parent verification both parents DNA records must be on file with the ABGA. U.C. Davis VGL provides the chart below to illustrate how a verification works.

If a sire or dam fails to qualify, we then ask the owner to provide us with additional potential sires or dams so that they can be tested. There is no charge for these additional test providing the animal being tested already has a DNA record on file. If you have kids where a parent is unknown we have a form that allows you to test multiple sires or dams prior to registering a kid so you can submit it properly. You still receive the same thirty three dollar discounted rate for this type of testing.

What to do if your animal needing tested dies? DON’T PANIC! All that you need to do is harvest is good sized chunk of hoof or tissue like the end of the ear. Keep cool not frozen and send the sample with a cool pack and test kit to UC Davis VGL as soon as possible. Hair loses DNA very quickly after death which is why they ask for the other alternatives. I would suggest if the animal is dead that you harvest two samples in case the first is lost in transit. The cost for testing hooves, tissue, and or semen is the same as testing hair samples.

Just a quick reminder to register kids the SIRE needs to have been DNA tested. It is not wise to sell the sire of kids you have produced without doing the test yourself. We have added a requirement for DNA testing to be performed on Donor dams before their kids can be registered as well. This allows us to identify the correct flush when a sire has been used on multiple does involved in the same flush and parentage comes into play.

Two to 3% of the sires we test fail the test. Most are quickly corrected by testing the other breeding aged bucks that were on the farm at the same time. Seems we have a few athletic males that are capable of leaping a tall building in a single bound. We also have few of us that simply sometimes forget to write things down and store them in a safe place.

Feel free to call us here in the

office with your DNA questions.