Practical Angora Goat Raising Part 1

Practical Angora Goat Raising.

by C. P. Bailey.

PREFACE.

For several years beginners in the Angora goat industry were without text books, and even to-day there are very few practical treatises. From our forty years of experience in farming Angoras, and from the personal observations of our Dr. W. C. Bailey, while in the interior of Asia Minor, we have tried to select the essential points in the successful management of Angora flocks, and to present these points so that they may be used.

We have given a brief outline of the history of the Angora goat, but we have devoted several pages to consideration of detail in breeding and kidding. It has been our aim to make this a practical text book for the beginner in the Angora industry, and if it proves of value to him, it has fulfilled its mission.

The Authors.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANGORA GOAT.

As to the origin and early history of the Angora goat little is known.

It is supposed that the Angora variety descended from one of the cla.s.ses of wild goats, and different writers have contended that different genera were the foundation of the Angora species. They have based these claims upon the characteristics of the horns, the covering of the body, shape and size of the animal, and various other details. Several agree that Capra aegagrus is the cla.s.s of goat from which the Angora species has developed.

KNOWN FACTS.

Present history traces the Angora goat to the vilayet of Angora, in Asia Minor, and to the country immediately surrounding this vilayet. Some have set a date over two thousand years ago, claiming that the Angora goat was introduced into Asia Minor at that time, but the only authentic history is that given by Tournefort, a French naturalist, employed by his government, who explored Asia Minor about two hundred and fifty years ago, and who described and pictured the Angora goat about as he appears to-day and by Evliya Effendi, a Turk, who wrote in 1550 of the goats, and by a few other writers. That they have not changed more is due to the fact that the Turk is quite content as he is, and he has no ambition to breed a different goat from what he has had for at least the past three centuries.

ASIA MINOR.

Before we consider the migrations of the Angora goat, we will investigate the physical conditions of their native province. The interior of Asia Minor, or the Angora goat country, is from one to four thousand feet above the sea level. Low, rolling hills and broad plains, treeless and almost waterless; dry, hot and desolate in the summer, and covered with more or less snow in the winter, form the habitat of the Angora. A small fine fibered sage brush is the princ.i.p.al diet of the goat, both summer and winter, but in the spring this diet is supplemented with weeds and some gra.s.s, and in the summer some of the goats are driven to the higher mountains, where there are some scrub pines and other varieties of brush. There is no winter feeding. The goats make their own living on the tops of the sage brush, which protrude through the snow.

The indolent Turks do make some provision for the shelter of themselves and the goats in the winter. If a cave can be found it is divided so that the goats share the quarters with the humans. Sometimes an adobe house is so arranged that the goats and other livestock occupy the lower part of the house and the natives the upper part, or if there be but one floor, a low fence is run across to keep the livestock out of the living quarters. Great greyish-white wolfish looking dogs, wearing formidable collars of sharpened spikes go with the shepherds during the day and watch the flocks during the night. They are used as a means of protection from thieves, and not as an aid in herding. The flocks camp around the cave or hut, and are not confined in corrals. Fences are almost unknown in the Angora country. There are probably four or five million Angora goats in Asia Minor. Much of the central plateau region of the United States is very similar to the Angora region of Turkey. A peculiar fact is that the mohair produced in the different sections of Asia Minor varies a little, and the mohair merchants of Constantinople readily recognize an appreciable difference in its market value. Even the smaller merchants in the country recognize a difference in the mohair grown within a few miles of their town. Some try to explain this by a difference in food, others by slight climatic changes, and still others by the soil formation. Some of the goats from the locality of Geredeh, in the province of Kastamouni, have fleeces which are filled with grease. They are as black and gummy as merino sheep. This mohair, however, scours white. The most marketable mohair comes from Beibazar and Eskischehr. That this difference in the quality of the mohair is not entirely due to climate or food conditions is evidenced by the fact that Angoras taken from Beibazar to California still retain the same qualities in the mohair after four years in California. However, it has been noticed that different parts of the United States produce different qualities of mohair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE IN ASIA-MINOR.

Turkish owner, his herder, holding an Angora buck kid and the grey-wolfish-looking dogs wearing collars of sharpened spikes. This picture was taken on the range and one can see the fine fibered sage brush on which the goats feed.

Photo taken by Dr. Bailey, 1901.]

ANGORA GOATS IN THE UNITED STATES.

The history of the Angora goat in the United States dates from 1849, when Dr. James B. Davis, of Columbia, South Carolina, was presented with nine choice animals by the Sultan. The Sultan had requested President Polk to send a man to Turkey who understood the culture of cotton. Dr.

Davis was appointed, and upon his return to America the Sultan, as a courtesy, presented him with the goats. For many years after their arrival in the United States these goats were considered cashmeres.

Early reports about the fleeces and the goats were erroneous, and many were led to believe that the fleeces from these goats were worth $8 per pound, and that the goats would shear from six to eight pounds per year.

Dr. Davis did not do very well with the goats. He crossed his Angora buck onto some of the native common goats, and sold some of the cross-bloods and possibly some of the original importation to various parties, but in 1854, Col. Richard Peters, of Atlanta, Georgia, secured most of the Davis goats. To Col. Peters really belongs the credit of keeping the Angora breed in existence in the United States up to the early sixties. Col. Peters was very fond of his Angoras, and he continued to own and run them up to the time of his death. He made a very creditable exhibit at the New Orleans World's Fair in 1885.

THE CHENERY IMPORTATIONS.

W. W. Chenery of Belmont, near Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, is supposed to have made the next two importations in 1861. No one seems to know exactly how many goats Mr. Chenery imported or what became of these lots. Mr. Thompson quotes the Ma.s.sachusetts Ploughman as saying, "The first of the two lots, consisting of thirty nine animals, was s.h.i.+pped from Constantinople on the 26th of March, 1861, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of May, except two animals which died on the pa.s.sage. The second lot consisting of forty one head, left Constantinople on the 6th of October, 1861, and arrived at Boston on the 25th of November with the loss of only one on the voyage. In the whole flock, eighty in all, there were about a dozen males, and all the animals wintered well."

It is generally supposed that Mr. Chenery made another importation in 1866, of about twenty head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGORA GOAT.

Brown and Diehl Importation, about 1868 or 1869.]

THE BROWN AND DIEHL IMPORTATION.

The next importation of practical importance, although it was claimed that nine head were received about 1861, by one Stiles, was made by Israel S. Diehl, a former U.S. consul and C. S. Brown, of Newark, New Jersey, about 1868. Mr. Diehl was commissioned by the United States government to investigate the industry in Turkey, and he secured a lot of Angoras, variously estimated at from one hundred to one hundred and sixty head. Mr. C. P. Bailey furnished the money for the transportation of these goats to California. He says, "Some were fairly good and some were only ordinary. They were of medium size, and with the exception of the neck, tolerably well covered with fleece, which however had a scattering of kemp throughout. They were conceded to be the best brought to California up to that time." Some of these bucks had been tampered with and were sterile.

EUTICHIDES IMPORTATION.

This s.h.i.+pment followed the Brown and Diehl importation, and consisted of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred animals. A. Eutichides, was a native of Turkey, and claimed that he had some fine goats, but he had an immense amount of trouble with his Angoras, and lost a good many.

They were held in Virginia for some time, and then were sent to Sacramento, California, and were afterwards sold by the express company, at public auction, at very low prices. This was about 1873. It was generally believed by old California breeders that some of the goats offered at this sale were cross-bloods of California origin. The blood of this importation, however, has been widely scattered over the Pacific Coast.

THE HALL AND HARRIS IMPORTATION.

In 1876, John S. Harris, of Hollister, California, returned from a perilous journey around the world in quest of new Angoras. He found the Thibet goats in the Himalaya Mountains, and finally succeeded in getting some goats at Angora, in Asia Minor. He secured two bucks and ten does, and brought them safely to California. That was really the first time an American had entered Asia Minor to study the Angora industry, as it was understood Mr. Diehl had secured Turks to go into the interior for him.

THE JENKS IMPORTATION.

This was a small importation of Angoras, supposed to have been three animals, made by C. W. Jenks of Boston, and sold to Col. Peters of Georgia. They were supposed to have come from Geredeh, in the interior of Asia Minor, and they arrived in the United States in 1880. The mohair from these goats was not considered very good, and the importation was not regarded as very important.

THE SHULTS IMPORTATION.

This was the first importation made from South Africa to the United States and arrived in 1886. There were two bucks and two does, and they went to Fink & Company, of Texas. There was a great deal of question about this importation, and so far as is known it was of no value to American flocks.

THE C. P. BAILEY & SONS CO. IMPORTATIONS.

In 1893, the first importation of Angora goats from South Africa, which was of value to American flocks, arrived. The two bucks, Pasha and d.i.c.k, which were secured by C. P. Bailey from R. Cawood, were sired by the great buck Sam. Mr. Schreiner says, "Sam was born in 1888, and sheared as a three year old, at twelve month growth, 15 pounds 2 ounces. He was exhibited for many years at all chief Agricultural shows and was never beaten but once, a judgment reversed at a subsequent show in the same year. Sam was the most famous goat in South Africa; with splendid weight of fleece, he combined a fineness of fiber rarely seen in an old ram."

Pasha developed into a great sire and his get has been distributed into nearly every State in the Union, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Without doubt Pasha's blood courses through the veins of more Angoras than any sire ever imported. He was acknowledged by every one to be the best individual ever brought to America. Mr. Landrum, who had seen most of the Angoras brought from Turkey and who saw Pasha at San Jose, California, in 1899, p.r.o.nounced him the most perfect goat he had ever seen and a much better goat than any which had ever come to America from Turkey. He bought some of Pasha's get for his own flock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGORA BUCK PASHA.

Bailey South Africa Importation 1893.]

In 1899, the buck Capetown was imported by Mr. Bailey from South Africa to secure certain points. Size and a little "yolk," together with the covering, fineness, freeness from kemp, ringlets and evenness were especially desired. Capetown has been a great sire and is still in fine condition on the Bailey farms.