Its another hot evening and as I lay awake reading the new issue of Countryside I had to get back up to post this. I recently came upon the information on a goat website and e-mailed the author there to correct it. I've yet to hear back.

Now this may be another... "yawn.....ho-hum" to many of you but it matters to me. i am a serious breeder of Alpines and have vast records on the breed history given to me by a dear friend.

This article is on page 80 of the new issue and written by Curtis W. Richardson and Sue Blakey of Ok St. univ.

The information on page 80 pertaining to the 5 main dairy breeds in the USA is inaccurate. "The five main breeds of dairy goats in this country are French Alpine, American LaMancha, Nubian, Saanen and Toggenburg." WRONG!!!!!!!!! If they are including dairy breeds then they need to add the Oberhalsi.

The next piece of misinformation is on page 81, pertaining to the French Alpine. The part where the colors are mentioned states that, "Sundgau is black with a white underbody or with white Toggenburg markings." Albeit its true that this coloration exists, there are also brown or tan sundgaus as well. I still have packed away the ADGA descriptions of breed information and standards. When I find the book I will update. Guess that makes tomorrows project to find the book, good reason to unpack more.

Then the next error in information pertains to the Black Saanen...... now this is a VERY heated ADGA debate and its over the Sable Saanen. It is not beginning to be accepted as a new variety as mentioned if you infer this in context to the coloration and breed standard vs. ADGA acceptance. Some breeders are accepting it and breed for it, however, in a old DGJ this whole coloration issue is mentioned. Will have to find the issue and update this. I will also check with my SableTalk1 list at yahoogroups for more information. this issue is heated right now as elections are coming up and several lists are experiencing the debate again. , and its a VERY heated issue with the Sanaan breeders. Perhaps some folks who are more knowledgable with this breed on the list might be able to add to this.

Now.... the last piece of information i found in error and this is the reason i got out of bed to post is pertaining to the Rock Alpines. The paragraph begins with."Other less numerous breeds in the US are Rock Alpines....Swiss Alpines... Norskas and Murcianas."

The Rock Alpines are not even mentioned anymore. in fact they may be referring to what we now call American Alpines and got the information confused. I feel it is important to mention the quote from my Alpine history files here. So, this is long but bear with me. This goes back to what we Alpine breeders talk about sometimes as the 10th cross rule. The alpine herdbook is closed so there is no way of recording a American with a french Alpine and getting a french. Here goes my quote:

Taken from the 1934 Goat World article by AMGRA the author of this history refers to a clue in this article from 1924 AMGRA minutes. "I have include that resolution here because of previous discussion about Rock Alpines. There have been some excellent animals produced by crossing one breed on another and commonly known as crossbreeds, notable among which are known as Rock Alpines, be it resolved that a committee of competant, reliable, breeders be appointed at the regular annual meeting of AMGRA to investigate the matter and inspect whether personally, or through one of its members, the herd of Mary E. Rock, of santa Barbara, who has bred continually the Rock Alpines for the past fifteen years and report back its recommendations relative to admitting said stock to our records as pure alpines or continuing to credit them with the percent of toggenburg, sanaan, or Nubian blood their tracings show, as heretofore."

further in the article I just quoted it is stated: "When we may have the rock alpine and (later on known as the American Alpine) added to these fine French Alpines we will really be getting somewhere."

so for the record, this amy not be important to most folks here, but it is important to me. I just wanted to post this in order to clarify the misinformation presented in the article. The authors as i said were contacted by me here recently. i am awaiting their response.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

I do not have the article at hand right now, but I remeber that it also described the chamoisee coloring as a yellow gray color with the black dorsal stripe, etc. I figured it was just a little thing, so I let it go. But the fact is that chamoisees can be a variety of colors, usually some shade of cream through brown, including red chamoisee (bay) which is commonly associate with the Obies. There are even black chamoisees, which are nearly all black with just remnants of the brown coloring on their face, tail and sometimes legs and shoulders. I wouldn't describe the color as yellow gray,though there are a few with that shade most chamoisees seem to be a medium to light brown.

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), July 10, 2001.

Bernice, thanks for all the info! we don't have goats yet but I have been reading everything possible about them because I plan to get goats soon.

I am leaning toward Angora goats because I raise Angora rabbits and I'm learning to spin their hair. Do you have any experience with Angoras? I would start small, perhaps with a breeding pair. thanks!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.

I found the artcle, there are more mistakes as well, like fawn being an OK color for Saanens and horns being counted against a doe in the show ring (horns are disqualifed in the showring, big difference between that and a few point losses). But I've noticed that there's usually something erroneous or that I don't agree with in most goat books, the two dairy goat periodicals are the exception to this most of the time. Might be good if a goat breeder could proofread the article next time, but there was some good info in the rest of the article that hopefully would be of use to beginners.

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), July 11, 2001.

Hi,

I noticed that too. And you know, the more I think about this I wonder if this isn't a reprint of an old article written years and years ago. I agree, might not be a bad idea to have someone look an article over or proofread.

Oh, and about raising angora (sp) goats..... i don't have any experience in that, but you might find some help by searching say yahoogroups.com for goats, then angoraras. Also sites like agdomain have breeders and their websites listed. go to http://www.agdomain.com then click on breeders and the breed. hope that helps.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 11, 2001.