Goat breeding is a popular area of domestic and industrial breeding of farm animals. Breeds of domestic goats can be divided into dairy, meat, wool. Among domestic goats, there are also versatile animals that produce different products. A well-known and popular breed in the world is the Angora wool goat or Angora. Today, these animals are bred on all continents for their wonderful fur.
Story
Angora is a highly specialized wool breed. The exact time of the appearance of the breed is not known.It is assumed that this happened around 4 thousand years BC. The place where these goats first appeared is Asia Minor. It is now part of modern central Turkey.
The breed received its name from the Turkish city of Angora, or in modern pronunciation Ankara. The wool of these goats was called moger or mohair. The first representatives arrived in Europe in the middle of the 16th century. They were brought to the Roman Empire by the traveler Ogier Ghislain d'Bubec.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, Angora goats from Turkey came to southern Africa, where they are bred to this day. In the middle of the 19th century, these animals were brought to the territory of Texas, USA. Today this state ranks first in the country and second in the world in mohair production.
Selection methods for breeding Angora goats are also not fully understood. Most likely, their ancestors were rough-haired goats. This confirms the similarity of the hair of newborn goats with the hair of adult coarse-haired animals. Further changes in the coat were most likely the result of a random mutation. Later they were consolidated by folk selection.
Description and characteristics of the breed
The height of females at the withers is 0.6 m, and males - 0.7 m. The average weight of queens is 40-50 kg, adult goats can weigh 50-60 kg. The head is elongated, hook-nosed. The ears are hanging and quite long. Females and males have a beard and horns. Goats have small horns, they are bent back and slightly diverge to the sides. The heads of goats are decorated on both sides with rather long, double-twisted horns. The neck looks pressed into the body, the chest is quite flat, and the limbs are short. They end in hooves of a brown-amber color.
Animal fur deserves special attention.It is curly, thick and soft, covering the entire body with the exception of the legs, muzzle and ears. On these parts the hair is very short, while on the body the long hair falls almost to the ground.
Wool is characterized by the following indicators:
- length – 20-25 cm;
- strength – about 14 km breaking length;
- the amount of short hair, up to 6 cm, is no more than 2%;
- yield of pure fiber is up to 80%.
The dense scaly layer of transitional hair gives the coat its famous shine (chandelier).
Advantages and disadvantages
Like any breed, Angora goats have their positive and negative sides.
The advantages include:
- unpretentious to feed, eat and assimilate different foods;
- rapid adaptation to different climatic conditions;
- good immunity;
- excellent quality wool;
- high wool productivity with twice a year shearing.
In addition to all of the above, these animals produce good milk with a fat content of up to 4.4% and pleasant-tasting meat without any foreign odor.
Among the disadvantages are the following:
- sensitivity to humidity;
- loss of productivity due to lack of care;
- problems with fertility and maternal instinct.
A pregnant angora, if it feels a threat to its health, can shed the fetus.
Care and maintenance of the Angora goat
When arranging a barn for keeping Angora goats, you need to provide an area of at least 4 square meters per head. It is advisable not to keep more than 30 animals in one room. It is necessary to provide for separate keeping of females and males.
Basic content requirements:
- dry room with good ventilation;
- the presence of a wooden floor with a bedding of straw, sawdust, pine needles;
- regular whitewashing of the premises for disinfection purposes.
To maintain it in winter, you need to make windows through which natural light will flow. The temperature in the barn with goats in winter should be about +8 degrees. In warm weather, goats can be kept in a free pen. For this purpose, a walking yard is arranged around the premises. It is surrounded by a fence of at least 2.0 meters in height.
A yard or paddock will come in handy and for walking goats in winter, since Angoras need regular exposure to the open air. Feeders and drinking bowls must be arranged in such a way that animals have free access to them.
Diet
Angoras are unpretentious in nutrition. In summer, it is advisable to organize grazing. If possible, it is better to do this not on a flat meadow, but where there are small hills or slopes. This breed is contraindicated for grazing in wet and swampy areas. Before and after grazing, goats need to be supplemented with hay.
When kept in stalls, goats are fed:
- hay;
- tree branches;
- mixed feed;
- grain;
- bran.
Use salt, chalk, meat and bone meal, and special premixes as top dressing. In summer, goats are watered at least 2 times a day, in winter - 1 time.
Prospects and features of breeding
Breeding Angora goats is a promising area in animal husbandry. This is due to the fact that while milk and meat go to the domestic market, high-quality mohair is in demand in other countries. In addition, it is not a perishable product and can be stored for quite a long time.
A farm owner who breeds Angoras will receive income from three types of products:
- wool;
- meat;
- milk.
Moreover, income from the sale of meat and dairy products will not be inferior to income from the sale of mohair.Animals with black, brown, and red fur have now been bred. Breeding colored animals has its own prospects.
Disease Prevention
The main prevention of contagious and non-contagious diseases is proper maintenance and good feeding of the livestock. Angora goats are quite susceptible to anthrax. Prevention consists of annual vaccination of animals and regular disinfection of the premises. Angoras also suffer from brucellosis. This disease is dangerous due to premature miscarriages and decreased productivity. Prevention consists of purchasing livestock that has been tested for this disease and has documented evidence.
In order to prevent diseases such as tuberculosis, foot-and-mouth disease, and listeriosis, it is necessary not only to buy healthy animals from prosperous farms, but also to keep newcomers in quarantine.
How to choose a good goat when buying
When choosing an adult goat, it is important to check its teeth so that the seller does not slip an old animal. To do this, you should grab a hard cracker and give it to the selected individual. A young animal will chew on a treat in a few seconds, while an old animal will spend a long time chewing on it.
It is important to examine the animal’s fur and move it apart in several places. The skin should be clean, without scratching or wounds. Do not buy an animal if it has deformed hooves covered with a dull horny layer.
