Congenital Myotonia (CM) In Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Recently there’s been a stir in the Nigerian Dwarf community about Congenital Myotonia (CM) in Nigerian Dwarf Goats. While we’ve all known that it exists in the breed and was likely introduced unknowingly during the early days of establishing the breed, it’s not something that is critical for a goat to live a happy and healthy life. It’s a breed disqualification set by ADGA. So if you have a goat that is CM positive (as noted CM/CM on test results), it’s not a death sentence. Please don’t panic! As a breed, we now have a tool to test for it but we need to be realistic and understand that it will take time to work it out of the breed.
What We’re Not Going to Do
We aren’t going to panic, sell, cull, or give up! There’s no reason we need to make drastic changes and we can in fact work through this!
What We ARE Going to Do
As a responsible breeder, we will do our part and test our herd so that we can make better decisions moving forward. Testing is a great tool to use but it does come as an added expense. Individual results are listed on each goat’s page.
You can also see our full list of results on our Google Sheet – GHF CM Testing. We want to be open about our results and welcome any questions that you may have.
We have been utilizing the CM testing offered by GenSol Diagnostics. GenSol is a lab used heavily by other species breeders and comes at a fraction of the cost of testing through ADGA/UC Davis. If you would like to consider GenSol Diagnostics, they offer a referral program – just Contact Us with your email address and we can send you our referral code. You save $25 off your tests and so do we!
As of 01/31/26, we have results on all current goats in the herd. At this time, we can guarantee that we will not have any affected goats (CM/CM)! We are excited that it worked out that way! We do have some carriers in the herd and we will continue to use them in our breeding program, just being careful not to line up a breeding with another carrier.
What You Can Do
If you have goats from our herd, please check our Google Sheet – GHF CM Testing where we will update the status of each goat in the herd. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions! We will gladly help you navigate the status of your animals from our herd.
Learn about CM! The more you know, the better you can make decisions. Reach out to other breeders and ask questions! We are always here to help!
Please note that all BLUE EYED goats are not Affected or Carriers!!! Sure, they may be some correlation to the eye color coming from a myotonic breed but that doesn’t mean that just because a goat has blue eyes that it’s got the CM gene.
Know how to read test results! Test results will show the following:
N/N = NORMAL – no CM in goat and they can’t pass it on to offspring.
N/CM = CARRIER – CM exists in goat but it’s not affected by it and it won’t show symptoms. Carrier does have a chance to pass it to offspring.
CM/CM = AFFECTED – CM exists in goat and may/can express symptoms and WILL pass it on to offspring.
Plan ahead! When breeding, keep in mind that each parent will pass on one of the alleles (N or CM). Based on the status of your Sire and Dam, this chart will give you the possibilities of each pairing. Our ultimate goal will be not to produce Affected goats. It is possible to breed it out of your herd by breeding, testing, and culling Affected or Carriers until all you have left is Normal goats. Thus the reason not to panic. This is something that can be managed and over time, corrected. We don’t feel there is any reason to completely cull any carrier as it does not affect the goat or it’s offspring in any way. As long as we have testing, we can be responsible to not create affected goats.
For more information, check out this article on ANDDA – Let’s talk about Congenital Myotonia – Written by Stephanie Trout
Breathe. This is not something you NEED to test for. There are many other herds testing so don’t feel obligated to jump in and spend the money on tests right now. Wait and see what develops and you may find that you don’t need to test as many goats in your herd. Reach out to the breeders where you got your goats from and see if they are testing. If we all work together, this will benefit the entire breed!
Last updated: 01/31/26