Published Paper Details:

One can develop specialized dairy type goats or specialized meat type goat or dual purpose ones; the dual purpose ones being most desired in India. Goats are also raised for hair fibres in the Himalayan region; e.g., the Kashmere or Pashmina goat. Hair of goats of other regions is rather coarse and is used for carpet making. Goat skins are also a very important commodity in this country. Hence, breeding techniques for goats have to be used for improving the above characteristics in them. There are several well developed breeds of goats in India as described in the previous section. Constant endeavours have to be made via production recording, selection and mating (selective breeding), to improve the potential of such breeds. These breeds, in turn, can used for upgrading non-descript stock in other regions. Jamnapari and beetal are most promising ones for this purpose. In fact, Jamnapari is extensively used for grading local stock not only in India but also in several other Asian countries; such a breeding programme giving progeny with better growth performance as well as milk production. Some synthetic breeds can also be developed using different breeds in crossbreeding. This is being attempted at several institutions in India with variable success. One of the outstanding examples of the evolution of a synthetic breed is the Anglo-Nubian breed, which has been evolved from Nubian ( of Sudan) and Jamnapari. It is a very goat tropical milch goat. Some of the recognized European dairy goat breeds like Saanen, Toggenburg and Alpine have also been tried for crossbreeding with indigenous breeds of goats in india and other tropical countries. Even purebred exotic goats have also been reared in warm regions.