Abstract

A large portion of the world's 400+ m illion head of goats cannot be identified as belonging to a specific breed or w ell defined genetic type. A common definition of a breed might be group of animals which are reasonably distinct and true breeding, can be identified by a name or term and which have an association to maintain and promote the breed. I f the la tter requirement is dropped there would s t ill be hundreds of breeds or genotypes of goats on a world basis. Certainly time, space and information available does not permit attempting to treat a ll of these in this paper. 

M. Shelton

Proceedings of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Volume IX. Breeding programs for dairy and beef cattle, water buffalo, sheep, and goats., , 523–532, 1986