DNA Services » DNA Testing, How to

Testing Types that Heritage Dairy Goat Registry Offers

• Marker (fingerprint of your goat’s DNA)
• Parentage
• Breed Analysis (Dairy Goat)
• Alpha S1 Casean (goat milk… helps us know if their milk will produce high cheese yield)
• G6S Deficiency (Nubian and Mini Nubian – This deficiency often will make the animal grow to less than its potential and also die young)
• Free Martin or Hermaphrodite
• Scrapie Susceptibility (goats)

Our DNA Registrations

• We offer DNA Registrations
• Highly Verified with Mating pairs
• Standard and ELITE Registration Certificates to prove the lineage and breed of your goat. No guesswork on these registrations

Types of Tissue which can be used

• Hair
• If the animal is deceased for a day or two, cut a slip of ear. This can be used in place of hair
• Semen (whole straw is best)
• Blood
• (if animal is deceased, there are specific body tissues that can be used for testing, but they are very expensive)

How to Test

Collecting the Sample

Hair

1. Use clean pliers, grasp a gob of hair near skin (clean dry and long haired location such as brisket, withers or hip)
2. Jerk out some hair
3. Place about 20-30 hairs in PAPER envelope (each animal in its own envelope). Seal the envelope 
4. Label envelope:  full name of animal including farm name and name of animal…registration number if you know it…  date of pull

Skin tissue 

(If goat is deceased for a day or two, you may use a slip of skin such as piece of an ear. This is in lieu of a hair sample.)

1. Use clean pliers.
2. Cut a slip of ear
3. Place in clean paper envelop and seal

Blood

1. 3-6 cc whole blood in PURPLE top EDTA collection tube
2. Label tube with animal’s full name, as it is on submission form
3. Place bag in sealed ziploc bag
4. If sending in warm weather, place ice pack in with sample.  If cold weather, then ice pack not necessary
5. Use lots of bubble wrap around collection tube and place in a box.  Then place that box inside another box. (If the sample is broken, then the lab cannot test the sample. We are trying to send the sample in a way that it won’t be damaged during transport

Semen

1. Preference of whole straw of semen
2. Place semen straw in sealed ziploc bag and write full name of animal as it is on the submission form
3. If the weather is warm, use an ice pack. If weather is cold, an ice pack is not necessary.
4. Wrap a lot of bubble wrap around bag.
5. Place inside box, then inside another box

Where to Send Sample

We accept four options. The first two options are preferential so that we may test be able to other testing type options as needed or at your request.

Please send all samples WITH Tracking, to ensure its arrival.

1. Sending Directly to Heritage Dairy Goat Registry

• Fill in the Heritage Dairy Goat Internal DNA order form
• Mail the sample to Heritage Dairy Goat Registry with tracking

2. Send sample to lab with Heritage Dairy Goat Registry VGL Order form

• In this case you would have already filled out the Heritage Dairy Goat Registry Internal Order Form
• HDGR will email you the HDGR VGL order form
• Attach the sample to the VGL test kit order form
• Send sample/test kit to VGL WITH tracking

3. Ordering from your own Account (not preferred)

• Have VGL Send us the DNA test form directly from your VGL account
• We only accept this if all the pertinent information is on the report (untampered with)
• Pertinent information: Full name of goat, Date of Birth, Registration Number (if one), Full Identification physically on goat, Breed, Owner of Goat on test
• Send HDGR a sample of hair to have on file

4. Other Registry VGL DNA Report (not preferred)

• As #3 above

Pricing

Non-members: Add $10/sample