Category: Biology
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Boer
Boer means “farmer” in the Afrikaners language. It might as well mean meat walking. Sadly the reason people eat them is because they are so artificially selected for and now adept at growing and utilizing muscles. I do not eat my Boers, even though I often wish I could. However they are much too valuable…
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Toggenburg 😔
If you have ever had a dream where you were hiking through the Swiss Alps as goats and milk maids frolicked around you then no doubt the breed was Togg. You know that Swiss chocolate and cheese that makes life beautiful. Like most things, the Togg’s migration to the United States has been unhealthy and…
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Saanen and Sable
Another Swiss goat variant with a respectable natural history that reached prominence between 1904 and 1930, no doubt because global depression led to most goats being eaten by their humans to survive robber barons tyranny. Saanens are the Holsteins of goats, basically living milkshake machines with pleasant demeanors which make all the difference in small…
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Oberhasli
According to Jen Brown this Alpine-type breed was once endangered like Nigerian Dwarfs but their numbers are increasing.
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Nubian
The heartwood of goats, they don’t come sweeter than these. Except for Toggenburgs , but they’re basically the unicorns of goats — everyone has seen one, no one knows where. Nubians are wicked smart too though, except when one isn’t. They are also very fragile. You could shot a Boer out of a cannon and…
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Nigerian Dwarf
I have one ND buck named Luke. Shown in post feature with his best buddy Artemis 2 who I lost this year. Luke has been thrown several feet by larger Boers, but you wouldn’t know it from his size. I still don’t have the heart to tell him he was a Pygmy goat originally breed…
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LaManchas
Arrived first through California with Spanish missionaries. Cross breed to produce about 125 descendants with Toggenburg. Then Alpines, Nubians, Saanen. I have seen how the ear likely formed over crossings, for the same process is happening with some of my Boer and Nubian buck kids. The unique cartilage shape of ear is known as elf-ear.
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Alpine
One of 300 distinct caprine breeds. A Swiss breed first imported to United States from France in 1922.
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