# Extra teats can be caused by environment - true or false?



## eliya (Mar 11, 2008)

O.k., so I always thought that extra teats (and extra orifices) were genetic and were hereditary. I just heard from a well known Nubian breeder and vet that that is not always the case.
My friend had a MiniNubian doe born this year who had an extra teat. This vet/Nubian breeder told her he would just snip the extra teat off as it was 'not the genetic kind' and that he has been seeing a LOT of extra teats this year. He told her that the extra teat comes from the Nubian side (which IMO, would imply that it IS genetic!?). Now, I am not sure that it ONLY comes from the Nubian side (don't Nigerians get extra teats sometimes too???) and I KNOW I do not think it is a good idea to just snip it and use the goat for breeding(!) but it is interesting that there seem to be an unusual number of kids born with extra teats this year. His comments and a few other things I have heard over the years make me wonder if extra teats can be influenced by environment, feed or something else. Why would there be more extra teats in a certain year across many different herds that are not using the same bucks or even the same bloodlines??? A question that I would like to hear answered is "Is there a certain type of extra teat that is not genetic, and if so, what causes it???"
Another thought... I know a kid can be inspected and birth and even a few weeks old and have normal teats and then develop an extra teat or a spur teat or fish tail teat later (I have seen this happen once and have heard of it happening from others as well.). What causes this?!?!? Lots of questions today!

Thoughts anyone?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

If it was environmental, a LOT more than just one kid would be born with it in the herd. You would see it across breeds and across bloodlines...I believe this happened to the Carlson's. LeeAnne is on here and on FB. 

Of course extra teats and double orifices are hereditary...look at boers. If you keep only does who have single teats on each side and use bucks out of dams with single teats you quickly get rid of extras....EXTRA's that you don't see in other countries but do because of the culls used to get the embryos initially, written into the breed standards because they were too valuable to cull for.

And of course a ND breeder will say the fault is Nubian, I would say with as few of any of this as I have seen in the Nubian breed that the fault is likely ND  Teasing, everyone will have an extra teat, everyone will have an extra orifice. Look at what both breeds come from ND and Nubians come from meat goats...ND from cobby little pygmy pets that someone started thinking about milk in them and bred more dairy pygmy's to more dairy pygmys and then registered them as ND.... and nubians from really bad mouthed, hatchet rumped, sway backed ugly goats  We are all just lucky all we have is a spare teat now and then.

A FF in another herd, freshened, with a double orifice, it wasn't seen by me at birth (and I am a freak about teats with my first spur teat found by a judge friend of mine at a SHOW), not seen by the new owner I sold her to as a kid, not seen at appraisal as young stock, found at freshening. Vicki


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Any breed can have extra teats. I had a deposit down for a Nigerian kid and she was born, but had an extra teat, so I did not buy her. Extra-teated goats can still be useful dairy goats, but I would cull all the kids born of that doe. There are two kinds of extra teats, the functional kind, and the not functional. For some reason, in cows they are pretty much always just non-functional, I think (cow people correct me if I am wrong).


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## Horsehair Braider (Mar 11, 2011)

As far as the "lots of extra teats this year" comment: human beings are really, really bad at the numbers of how things happen, and that is one of the reasons we invented the scientific method, and statistics or probability mathematics. People might look at say 5 does having extra teats, then make the comment "Lots of extra teats this year" without actually knowing the real facts: how many does with extra teats are born every year? What breed is this most common in, if any one breed? How many does with extra teats, compared to total amount of does, were born in the entire country? World? Unless you have this information (I don't believe it's available) it is really hard to make a determination that something is happening more than it normally does. You don't know how often it normally happens. 

Sit down and flip a penny 1,000 times, and record heads or tails. There will be times when there are a LOT of tails landing up. But still, when you do it enough and look at the numbers overall, it ends up being 50/50. 

Probability of does being born with extra teats: hard to say, and I don't know that any science has been done is this regard. I have always heard it was genetic. The only people who did not believe this were trying to sell me a doe with an extra teat, so that is a little suspicious to me - although of course they may be absolutely right. Without any scientific study done, I would be hesitant to say one way or the other. Maybe other people have better information than I do.


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

I can understand the argument that sometimes supernumeraries might be environmental, but how on earth does a vet look at the teat and say "this is the environmental kind, not the genetic kind." Are the environmental kind bright orange or polka dotted or something while the genetic kind are not?


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## eliya (Mar 11, 2008)

smithurmonds said:


> I can understand the argument that sometimes supernumeraries might be environmental, but how on earth does a vet look at the teat and say "this is the environmental kind, not the genetic kind." Are the environmental kind bright orange or polka dotted or something while the genetic kind are not?


LOL Nicki!



Horsehair Braider said:


> As far as the "lots of extra teats this year" comment: human beings are really, really bad at the numbers of how things happen, and that is one of the reasons we invented the scientific method, and statistics or probability mathematics. People might look at say 5 does having extra teats, then make the comment "Lots of extra teats this year" without actually knowing the real facts: how many does with extra teats are born every year? What breed is this most common in, if any one breed? How many does with extra teats, compared to total amount of does, were born in the entire country? World? Unless you have this information (I don't believe it's available) it is really hard to make a determination that something is happening more than it normally does. You don't know how often it normally happens.


I agree with you Jacquee'. He is a vet and has been for many years, so I think he is saying that he is seeing more this year than he usually does.



Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> And of course a ND breeder will say the fault is Nubian, I would say with as few of any of this as I have seen in the Nubian breed that the fault is likely ND  Teasing, everyone will have an extra teat, everyone will have an extra orifice.


Lol, it actually was a NUBIAN breeder that said it comes from the Nubians...


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

Eliya - my guess is that when your vet said that it's environmental rather than genetic, the spur teat he was looking at didn't have an orifice. These are single teats with no orifices, almost like skin tags, that are not genetic but do show up occasionally across breeds.


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## luvzmybabz (Sep 15, 2008)

OK Maybe this is TMI but, In humans a third nipple working or not, is genetic. I as have a small pencil lead size dimple while 3 of my 5 sons also have them even though they vary in size from as small as mine to a bit larger then a pencil eraser. I also know/knew a woman a few years back that had a third nipple that produced she was able to nurse her children from it. It was a bit lower then her breast on her chest. Her sons has smallish type third nipples. So in humans functioning and non-functioning are genetic.


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I fully agree about the Boers. It was hard to find a nice 2 teated buck, but I did and used him on some does that had 4 (and 7) teats. The kids had 2 teats. Definitely genetic!

Skin tags on udders and teats, my guess would be not genetic but I am usually wrong.

I want polka dotted teats!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Let's not pretend these extra teats are skin tags  Vicki


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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

fmg said:


> For some reason, in cows they are pretty much always just non-functional, I think (cow people correct me if I am wrong).


 Depends on the cow. The Norwegian Red brought in a lot of extra teats when we used them. We had cows with three or four extra teats. If there was mammary tissue connected to the teat, then they did produce milk. We had a couple of Jersey/Norwegian Reds that would have to be milked in their "5th quarter" post partum and eventually the "quarter" would dry up.
Please forgive the filthy rear udder. This would have been shortly after calving, so she was still cleaning. If you look at the extra teat, you can see the mammary development attached to it.

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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Thank you, Roseanna. Interesting!


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

I will say that there are environmental agents that do cause abnormalities to any species. I won't go into too many specifics but it is possible. 
From what I have researched however it is catalized by the genetic possibilty. 
Tam


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## eliya (Mar 11, 2008)

Thanks everyone! This brings up another question... If you do end up with an extra teat on a goat, what do you do as far as culling. I know the animal with the extra teat would be culled, but what about parents and siblings? I realize this will vary from breeder to breeder, but would like to hear opinions.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

If the dam and sire didn't have other kids with extra teats I would rebreed, even the same breeding. If I saw a lot of extra teats, or bad mouths, or bad feet I would cull the offending sire or damn. Vicki


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

I'm with Vicki. And if you like the kid I see no reason to cull her either. If you've never had an extra teat crop up in this family line, it's highly unlikely that she'll produce offspring with spur teats either. Especially if it has no orifice.

We have an old Boer-cross doe that has four working teats, but when we sold our Boer buck a number of years ago we began breeding her to our purebred Nubian bucks and she never produced a kid that had more than two teats after that. . . .


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

I had my first goat born with a teat deformity this spring- a doe kid with a spur teat. Definitely a cull (butcher) for me. I have no desire to mess with that. Have had several nice kids out of both sire and dam in the past so I am not culling the parents, just the kid. Not sure what to do with her twin sister , though. Still deciding.


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## eliya (Mar 11, 2008)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> If the dam and sire didn't have other kids with extra teats I would rebreed, even the same breeding. If I saw a lot of extra teats, or bad mouths, or bad feet I would cull the offending sire or damn. Vicki


Thanks Vicki. What about if a buck sired two kids with an extra teat (out of different does)? How many would constitue 'a lot of extra teats'? I know of a young buck (not in my herd) who sired 4 kids so far and had two with extra teats and two with normal teats (all four were bucklings). Would you keep trying him to see if it was a fluke or would it not be worth it??? Or maybe, he should be culled for throwing 100% bucklings! :biggrin


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

He would be in the freezer as sausage already!

It is the problem in breeding the mini's, few are using champion dam's bucklings and doelings or high appraising foundation stock. When using lesser breeding in your foundation stock, you are going to end up with a lot of basic type and conformation, and even cullable DQ issues that have long been culled out of quality breeding stock. It's a fluke to see extra teats or extra orifices in the lifetime of a buck or doe breeding and kidding here...so when a buck gives you DQ issues, cull him and his sons quickly. 

When going after a true nubian type head and ears, you can't use bloodlines of nubians who have poor breed character but are used for their high and tight rear udder...you can get that from your ND side.

I don't think playing with mini's is something I will ever do again, but I sure love thinking about how I would start them. Vicki


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

:yeahthat


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