Portuguese Native Breed Goats as Packer Prospects!

587 Views 25 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Moers kiko boars, 13 d ago

CaminhodeCabras

Discussion Starter · 3 mo ago

Hi Guys,

[I also posted this to the Pack Goat Central forum so apologies if anyone sees it twice.]

So we're based in Portugal where the 'classic' pack goat breeds are hard to come by.

We managed to find one guy with a herd of alpines and alpine crosses, but they did not look well cared for nor healthy. We decided to walk away from those as unhealthy goats are obviously no good for packing no matter what the breed.

The healthiest looking goats we found are all Portuguese natives - extremely hardy, eat anything, go anywhere types of goats. They have floppy ears to cope with the heat (which can get up to 40c or 104f in the height of summer) and some do get quite big and leggy, helping them range over very rough terrain consisting of boulders and prickly brush.

These breeds tend not to be super well standardised. Mongrel native mixes are common and are appreciated for their rusticity. Native types are more popular here than globally-known commercial meat and dairy breeds as they tend to fare better!

We've got a couple of kids of a very local type that has been developed here for literally hundreds of years. I am no expert in choosing pack goat prospects, especially in breeds that as far I know have never been packed and don't look much like any of your guys' goats. We picked a very big yellow boy (the shepherd, who is breeding for size and docility, said this kid would grow up huge; he kept his brother as an up-and-coming breeder). This one was also very friendly and curious. We also picked a slightly smaller black boy (a week or two younger as well) who has what we thought was the nicest conformation of the kids available; he has a very gentle and pensive personality.

We tried to select for straight backs, long legs, straight pasterns, etc... This guy's bucks were massive goats but all extremely tame and gentle. They all go out twice a day for several hours to graze up the mountain with the shepherd.

One of my concerns is that I have heard 'floppy ears don't pack' a lot with reference to your American Nubians.... Despite having floppy ears, these guys are very much a European breed. They have a slight North African influence, but are more closely related to other European breeds such as the various Spanish breeds and (more distantly) Swiss, French, Carpathian goats and even, supposedly, traces of Iberian Ibex. I have no idea if they have 'the right stuff' in terms of personality, but they are bred to be extremely gentle, rustic and willing/able to walk all day with a shepherd, so who knows. They are definitely very loving and follow us everywhere, also walking on the lead beautifully.

I'd love to know your thoughts on their looks. They are 3 months and a bit old now and will be castrated soon. They were raised in a barn until we got them (not ideal, I know) and so I know they do need to put on some muscle - but do you think any raw potential is there at all in terms of their basic physical structure? They are perhaps a little more swaybacked than ideal (or maybe I'm being paranoid) but no goat has ever been bred to pack in Portugal and we would eventually be looking to improve on this type of genetics in future through a personal breeding project.

We're hoping to get a couple more of different native breeds and see which ones work out best to form the basis of our string, so this is very much experimental!

Pictures here! --->

http://imgur.com/a/DTdKDnl

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