Chamois-colored mountain goat
The chamois-colored mountain goat (outdated spelling G e ms ...; collocated also: chamois) is a brown-black colored dairy goat , which originally comes from the cantons of Bern and Graubünden , but today it is everywhere in Switzerland and the Alpine regions of the neighboring countries is common. Their advantage is that they produce high milk yields even when kept extensively .
Traditional attitude and meaning
Under the term "chamois-colored mountain goat" in 1938 a goat breeding specialist conference in the course of the racial cleansing for the sake of clarity summarized about two dozen local breeds and types that were very similar to one another. (Today a distinction is only made between the horned Graubünden and the unhorned Oberhasli-Brienzer type. It was not until 1984 that the (long-haired) Stiefelgeiss was officially listed as an independent breed and was spun off again.)
There is therefore no uniform tradition of keeping this breed, rather it differs from region to region. In Graubünden, the goat often had the task of accompanying the hiring men on their semi-nomadic life cycle between the valley, Maiensässen and alpine meadows and supplying them with milk on site, whereby high demands were placed on the animals' ability to walk. In the Bernese Oberland, goats were kept more as domestic goats.
Physical characteristics
The chamois-colored mountain goat is a slender, medium-sized goat (height at withers in goats: 70–80 cm; in male goats: 75–85 cm, minimum weight 45 kg in females, 65 kg in males). It is both horned and genetically polled. The horns - if any - of the female animals are slightly smaller than those of the other Swiss mountain goat breeds, but those of the male are powerful and expansive. The goats usually do not have a beard.
The ambiguous term "chamois-colored" does not refer to the fawn to chestnut brown basic color (which is significantly lighter in chamois ), but to the black markings, especially the black eel line on the back. The goat also has black markings on the limbs (boots) and on the head, which should not be completely black. This brown-black drawing (of the ancestors of the goats not dissimilar) is not targeted by selective breeding , but in Gämsfarbigen mountain goat as well as - independent of - among many other domestic goat breeds world naturally arose. The hair is straight, close-fitting and short - but a little longer than the ray goat or the Nera Verzasca goat .
The udder is often split.
Essence
Like all domestic goats, the chamois is easy to tame. In terms of her abilities, however, she is rather reserved to shy.
Their very strong urge to move is noticeable: Even if there is plenty of food available everywhere, chamois-colored mountain goats never stay in the same place for long in free grazing (the exceptions are the breaks during which the goats chew on ) and cover long distances every day. The chamois-colored are herd-oriented.
power
The average milk yield is 753.3 kg (with 3.4% fat and 3.0% protein) per lactation period with an average of 265.7 milk days, which corresponds to an average milk quantity of 2.84 kg per day. With intensive husbandry, values of well over 1000 kg per year are possible.
The special thing about the chamois-colored mountain goat is that it can adapt its milk yield to the keeping conditions. Pure high-performance milk goat breeds invest a large part of the energy consumed in milk production, even with extensive husbandry: with physically demanding husbandry and mountain-typical climatic conditions, this quickly affects the general state of health. Not so the heat- and cold-tolerant chamois-colored mountain goat, which can also cope with harsh conditions and produces a milk yield that is significantly higher than that of other Swiss mountain goat breeds.
Duration
In recent decades the population has increased rapidly: in 1974 there were still 1972, in 1994 it was 4561 and today (as of May 1, 2013) there are 9320 animals registered in the herdbook. The chamois color has been the most common goat breed in Switzerland since the 1990s (previously: Saanen goats ). It is not considered endangered.
literature
- Urs Weis (ed.): Swiss goats. Birken Halde Verlag, 2004.
