Once we had our red and paint breeding program fairly well established, I found myself very attracted to spotted goats. I asked friends and fellow breeders who were using them as recipients and nurse nannies to sell them to me when they were finished with them, and managed to collect a few over time. Most of these were of Nubian or Spanish influence. In 2001 I bought a really nice red Boer influenced doe kid with a strong spotting pattern. We named her Apple since she had apple sized spots. The seller claimed she was a fullblood Boer, and offered me papers, but I refused them–I felt that a fullblood Boer could not be spotted, so the papers must be false. I'm sorry I did that, since now I believe that it is possible for a fullblood Boer to have spots, and I would at least like to know some of the breeding behind my mystery doe.

Apple, with some dappled daughters of Rhodapple

We bred Apple to Bon Joli Rob Roy, a young buck we had produced. He was sired by our buck FSE Highwayman (Highlanders 104 x Pillio), and was out of TH Mahbouti, a nice paint doe of Matt Brown and Charles Turner breeding. One of Apple's twins from that breeding was a handsome paint buck with spots in his colored areas. We called him Impressionist, and used him on our percentage does, trying to produce more spots. He was eventually sold to John and Jaye Kuker of Fredericksburg, and is siring spotted kids in their mostly commercial herd.

Impressionist at age 5

In 2003 our registered 3/4 percentage doe, Bon Joli Lindy, produced a wildly spotted buck by Impressionist. He looked like he was wearing camouflage, so we called him Desert Storm. We also used him in our herd before selling him as a wether sire.

Up to this point, all of the spotted kids born at Bon Joli were percentage bucks, or sired by percentage bucks, so none of the kids were registerable with the Boer goat associations. We kept trying to produce spotted doe kids that could be registered, and bred Apple to our great red herdsire, KALR Stone Cold SA (Steve). Once again we were disappointed (at first) when she produced a spotted buck kid–but that kid was magnificent! We called him Bon Joli Rhodapple, and felt that he was as good as some of the best fullblood Boer bucks on the show circuit. He draws favorable attention from everyone who sees him, and we are extremely proud of him. We've bred Rhody to some of the best does in our herd, including some fullbloods, and are very pleased with his offspring. One of his red wethers took 2 nd place in a tough class of 147 kids at the 2007 San Antonio market goat show (more than 1400 wethers were exhibited). The judge had announced that he did not particularly care for red goats, and felt they did not carry as much muscle as the traditional colored ones. When he had to comment that that particular red kid was full of muscle, and would be placed 2 nd in the lineup of that huge class, there was great applause from the audience.

	Rhodapple--2006

We think that Rhodapple and his family are so good that in 2006 we opened a registry for them with Pedigree International. We call this line of spotted goats the DeLobbe Dapple. It is intended to be an attractive, commercially functional, healthy, composite color breed based on Rhodapple's bloodlines. Details are still being worked out, but the groundwork for the line has been set. More information will be provided when available.

Also in 2006 we purchased four spotted Boer bucks that were registered as fullbloods or American purebloods. For various reasons I culled three of them without ever breeding does to them. The fourth one, Logan Hill Mr. Makers Mark, was registered as a fullblood, came out of Kentucky, and had a good bit of Little League Ranch (Troy Powell) breeding. I knew that Troy had produced some spots in his lines, as several years ago the Kukers (who now have Impressionist) had a black spotted registered fullblood buck from him. Although we much preferred Rhodapple to Mark, we used Mark extensively in our herd on both fullblood and percentage does, and produced some spotted/dappled ABGA registerable kids that we are proud of. In fact, Bon Joli Mint Julep, a spotted fullblood doe kid, was the high seller at the 2007 Color Connection Sale. Both Rhodapple and Mark will be DNA tested at UC Davis to eliminate any speculation over whether any of the nice kids registered as Mark offspring might actually be sired by Rhodapple. We do believe in keeping our pedigrees straight!

Some people have questioned whether we would discontinue working with Rhodapple's lines, now that we have ABGA registerable spotted and dappled Boer goats. Far from it. We feel that, in some applications, particularly in commercial herds in unfavorable climates, that high quality percentage Boers may be a better option than fullbloods. We believe that the DeLobbe Dapple line of good-looking, functional, spotted goats will have a lot to offer producers who want to raise attractive and hardy meatgoats.