Does the shape of a billys scrotum give a hint to what his daughters udders will look like?

Sorry in advance for the somewhat awkward question, lol! I'm asking this question for two reasons, the first being that we're evaluating our bucks and would like to know if that is a clue to help us pick our keepers. The second reason is that we have a buckling from this spring that has a split scrotum. I've done research and come up with mixed results (it can cause infertility due to a weird attachment that results in the split, or the shape tends to throw pendulous and droopy udders???). Here's some comparison pictures to show what I'm looking at. Pedro (the buck with the split) came out of a Spanish doe that we bought last fall. We wanted the Spanish to increase hardiness in our herd of Nubians, but the only readily available does came from a herd with poor records, but pretty nice conformation. Because of that, we have no clue who his sire is, and nothing about his dam's parentage. The udders in our Nubian flock are pretty small (we've been breeding towards better udders, but haven't had goats for very long), so we'd really like to ensure that we only keep bucks that will throw nice udders so as not to go backwards in our breeding program.
In our sheep, we've noticed a possible correlation between the shape, size, and attachments of the rams scrotum, and the same traits in the rams daughters udders. Is that true of goats? Below, I have pictures of three different billys, all with differently shaped scrotums.

I'm sorry I don't have a definitive answer, I'm replying mainly to say two things:

First, thanks for that thread title, it's the best thing I've read on the internet today.

Second, I'd be surprised if the two things were correlated because they seem like they'd be controlled by totally different genes. You say you've noticed a possible correlation in the sheep, but just knowing the very little about genetics that I do know, I'm still skeptical, unless these two particular traits are for some peculiar reason linked in ungulates.

Still, I am not an expert in anything remotely related to this, and the only animal I've ever bred is myself, so take my above comments with a dome of salt and good luck in your goat quest!

I do not own goats, but when I was younger I was seeing a farmer's daughter and ended up learning all about them.

Split scrotum's are disqualifiers for breed judging because splits have been correlated to breed poorer udders. Longer splits seem to correlate with worse udders compared to smaller splits.

I don't necessarily believe that correlation and causation are one and the same but you have to consider that a large even scrotum with equal size testicles will produce more sperm than one that is impinged by their scrotum.

Could you have luck with a semi-split scrotum buck? Of course! I would personally use a buck if the split was large or seemed to be genetically passed down with future births.

Ned Harr wrote: First, thanks for that thread title, it's the best thing I've read on the internet today.

Second, I'd be surprised if the two things were correlated because they seem like they'd be controlled by totally different genes. You say you've noticed a possible correlation in the sheep, but just knowing the very little about genetics that I do know, I'm still skeptical, unless these two particular traits are for some peculiar reason linked in ungulates.

Still, I am not an expert in anything remotely related to this, and the only animal I've ever bred is myself, so take my above comments with a dome of salt and good luck in your goat quest!

Lol, nice to know! I sort of cringed when I posted that, but I guess I didn't need to worry!
I do agree, it seems weird. Here's some examples of what I'm seeing in our sheep though. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it's been fairly consistent in our sheep, which we've had for a number of years now. Some of these pictures were taken right after the ram was rooed, so they look way more pinched than normal.
In the pictures, notice how Glacier has a much looser (I know he's older, but still) scrotum, and Luther's is much higher? Both of these rams have thrown really nice udders over a number of years in our flock, but Glacier threw looser udders with lower attachments, and Luther throws tight udders with high and strong attachments.

Timothy Norton wrote:
Split scrotum's are disqualifiers for breed judging because splits have been correlated to breed poorer udders. Longer splits seem to correlate with worse udders compared to smaller splits.

I don't have a dog goat in this fight since I'm just a dude in the suburbs but I am so, so, so surprised to learn this today. Who'da thunk!

Interesting idea. From what i know the reproductive parts are formed from the same tissue and shift towards male or stay female depending on hormones and enough nutrition from the mother during gestation.
From the animals shown here i see the connection, but how or if it is a correct connection to assume i don't know.
What i can say is that from the 3 bucks in the opening post the middle one looks like the best buck, the other 2 i wouldn't want to keep breeding stock from. Not only well attached udders are important for getting around comfortably, but so are well attached boy bits and with enough room for them where the 3rd buck is a question mark for me.

My experience with the anatomy of the boy bits is it also goes with the placement of his teats as well. I agree your herd sire has the best scrotal confirmation and pedro has the worst. His cleft is pronounced. But.... In the past (I do similar to you... Breeding my own landrace from nubian, spanish, boer, and a Nigerian dwarf in 4-5th generation) my Spanish doe was so worm resistant (I'm in fl) that even though she produced bucklings with a cleft, and her only doeling had a lopsided udder despite my diligence at keeping things even. I kept a male and used him anyway. I have a small herd and just now have yearlings by him... but the one of those I did breed had fabulous buckling and milked perfectly and had the attributes I bred for. (Nice udder and teats, worm resistance, good appetite, quiet on the stand) There's 2 more that I waited to breed and they are now bred for Feb and April kidding.
Its my opinion that experimenting is okay... Especially when highly desirable traits exist and you accept that not all offspring need bred in the future. We have to weigh the highly desirable traits with the acceptable traits with the undesirable traits....
I haven't logged in in a long time but retirement is near so hopefully I'll be back !

Hi,
we actually breed and show dairy goats so I may be able to help.  The shape of the scrotum it not what you should look at.  To improve your udders, you want to see the structure of the mothers of the bucks.  You should also select for a wide and rounded eschucheon (which is basically where the  top of the hind legs meet) But the biggest thing is to review the mothers udder. And what are you trying to improve on the udders? Capacity, for udder, rear udder, medial suspensory ligament etc?