Spanish goat

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This brush goat is one of a large herd hired to clear blackberry bushes from the University of Washington campus

The Spanish goat, also called the brush goat or scrub goat, came originally from Spain via Mexico to the USA. It is now a meat and brush-clearing type found widely in the U.S. The term "wood" (Florida), "brush" or "briar" (North Carolina, South Carolina), "hill" (Virginia), and "scrub" (Midwest Pennsylvania) goat tends to be used in the Southeast and elsewhere. Until recently, these goats were kept mainly for clearing brush and other undesirable plant species from pasture lands.

1 Characteristics
2 Conservation status
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Characteristics

The Spanish goat has the ability to breed out of season and is an excellent range animal because of its small udder and teats. In addition, Spanish goats are very hardy, able to survive and thrive under adverse agroclimatic conditions with only limited management inputs. Within the general group of what are called "Spanish goats," there are those that are purely of Spanish origins, but the term has been used to represent an amalgam of all genotypes introduced to the area. There have been obvious infusions of dairy and Angora blood in many "Spanish" herds but no organized attempt has ever been made to use them for milk or mohair production.

In recent years, the escalating demand for goat meat has focused research into the qualities of the Spanish goat as a meat goat. Spanish goats have shown excellent hardiness and have shown themselves to be a low-input goat compared to other meat breeds. Several Spanish goat producers in Texas have been intensively selecting for increased meat production for the past several years. From information obtained from these producers, these "selected" Spanish goats appear to greatly outperform the ordinary Spanish goat used primarily for pasture maintenance.

[edit] Conservation status

When Boer goats were introduced into the United States in the 1990's, many producers switched from raising Spanish goats to raising Boer or Boer crosses, which greatly reduced the population of Spanish goats. Today, there are approximately 6,000 purebred Spanish goats nationwide. They are now held to be a conservation priority by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and in 2007 the Spanish Goat Association was organized to help conserve this breed.