Spanish

Goats did well here. They gave milk, meat and hides, they went wherever the Spanish went, and they became a mainstay of subsistence farming across the southern half of North America and down through Central and South America. There was a second reason to eat goat. It kept the cattle free for draft work, which crops and transport depended on.

For more than three hundred years these were the only goats across the southern United States. Isolation and natural selection produced many regional types and strains, some domestic and some feral.

That ended when other goat breeds began arriving in the second half of the 1800s. Most Spanish goats in the US were crossed into them, for dairy, for Angora fiber, and later for Boer meat production, and purebred populations became rare. Texas holds the largest concentration today.

The Livestock Conservancy's breed facts put them at 60 to 125 lb; its longer breed description gives 50 to 200 lb, and both are honest, because centuries of regional strains left real variation between herds. The frame is rangy and large rather than compact, on straight legs and strong, upright pasterns.

Most are horned. The ears are large and carried horizontally, not pendulous like a Nubian's. The coat is usually short and smooth, though some animals carry longer hair or a heavy cashmere undercoat, 2 to 3 oz of fiber, and any goat color occurs, with plenty of variation inside a single herd.

Alert. These are range goats shaped by rough country, and they behave like it.

Hardy, adaptable, parasite resistant, good mothers: The Livestock Conservancy's notes are the summary, and it rates the breed suitable for a novice. They mostly look after themselves.

Meat first, and demand has risen with the American goat meat industry. They excel at brush clearing and at turning forage other stock refuse into weight.

Some are milked and some strains grow cashmere, but the udder is small with small teats, built for raising kids on range rather than for the milking stand.

Not much, which is the breed's argument. They thrive in harsh environments and hold condition on rough forage.

Does are long-lived, prolific and can be bred throughout the year, so a herd renews itself without much intervention.

The breed is listed as Recovering on the Conservation Priority List, with an estimated population of 8,000. Recovering is the list's lowest level of concern, and numbers have grown with the meat market, but the pressure has not gone: every cross into Boer or cashmere production is useful to its owner and a subtraction from the purebred pool.

Ask what Spanish means in this particular herd. The name covers documented purebred bloodlines and a great many generic brush goats of uncertain ancestry, and they are not the same purchase. The American Spanish Goat Association keeps a DNA-based registry; ask whether the animals are registered, whether they are DNA-verified, and which bloodline they trace to.

For a commercial meat or brush herd, unpapered Spanish-type does may serve you well. For conservation breeding, the papers and the DNA are the point.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.