Today is my natal day ! I asked Mom if I could blog about my preferred subject . She say I could , so I ’m going to talk aboutgoats .
According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service , as of Jan. 1 , 2012 , the U.S. played home to 2.84 million Goat . They admit 360,000 dairy farm goats ; 146,000 Angora goats ; and 2.36 million other goats . That ’s a lot of goats !
Twenty - eight goats last on our farm . Besides us plain superiorNubiangoats , we haveBoers , a Sable ( Sables are coloredSaanens ) but also register as a freestanding breed ) , anAlpine , aSpanishand several mixture — mostly Boer and Nubian , thoughBig Mamais Boer and Saanen .
TheAmerican Dairy Goat Associationhas registered more than 1 milliondairy goatssince it was formed in 1904 . It recognizes eight breeds : Nubians , Alpines , Saanens , Sables , LaManchas , Oberhaslis , ToggenburgsandNigerian Dwarfs . There are miniature edition of all these breed except Nigerian Dwarfs ; they ’re register with another organization , theMiniature Dairy Goat Association .
Besides dairy farm goats , there are brawnymeat Goat , such as Boers , KikosandSavannas ; long - coated fibre goats , such asAngoras , Cashmeres ( Mom wrote an clause about them in the July / August 2010 emergence ofHobby Farms),Pygorasand Nigoras ( they ’re part Angora and part Nigerian Dwarf ) . Some stock , likePygmies , dual - purposeKinder goats , Myotonic goatsand rareSan Clemente Islandand Arapawa Island Capricorn are in categories all by themselves .
We goats were one of the first wild species domesticated by humans . Scientists trust that hap about 10,000 year ago at a hamlet called Ganj Dareh in the Zagros Mountains of what ’s now Iran . Our ancestor was a baseless mountain goat called a Bezoar goat . No curiosity we wish to climb on things !
For thousands of years , we goats have been used for our pith , Milk River , hides , haircloth , hooter , castanets , sinew , and dung for fuel and fertilizer , and as draught animals to wad goods and pull carts all over the reality . Bride terms and dowries were give in butt , and goats sometimes provided sacrifices for human being ’ graven image .
Some goats became military mascots , likeWilliam de Goat , Sergeant BillandNan . The British have a long tradition of white Kashmir military goats , like William Windsor , also known as Billy , who was lance corporal in the 1st Battalion , the Royal Welsh , and retired in 2009 after eight years of mostly exemplary service . His only mess - up happened in 2006 when , in a parade honor Queen Elizabeth ’s 80th birthday , he failed to keep in step and maintain trying to channelise butt a drummer ’s backside . Billy was demoted to fusilier ( the equivalent of private ) for three whole calendar month . His substitution is call William Windsor , too . Like his predecessors , the novel Billy ’s pay include a daily ration of Guinness stout and two cigarettes , which he eats .
Stay tuned ! I ’ll have more about us goats next week .
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