The Golden Guernsey is a rare breed of goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

 from the Bailiwick of Guernsey on the Channel Islands

Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

. They were first brought to Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 in 1965 and a sub-breed has evolved known as the British Guernsey.

Origin

The exact origin of these animals is uncertain but since goat bones have been found in dolmen

Dolmen

A dolmen—also known as a portal tomb, portal grave, dolmain , cromlech , anta , Hünengrab/Hünenbett , Adamra , Ispun , Hunebed , dös , goindol or quoit—is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of...

s (a type of Megalithic tomb) as old as 2000 B.C. on the islands, it is likely that the breed began to evolve

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 into its current form about this time. The ancestors of the Golden Guernsey are believed to have been the Oberhasli

Oberhasli (goat)

The Oberhasli, also known until 1987 as the Swiss Alpine, is a very old breed of dairy goat from the eponymous district of the Canton of Berne in Switzerland. Oberhaslis are a standardized color breed, with warm reddish brown accented with a black dorsal stripe, legs, belly, and face. Occasionally...

 and Syrian

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 breeds. The first documented reference to the Golden Guernsey in its current form dates from 1826 when reference to a "golden goat" was printed in a guide book. In 1965 the Golden Guernsey was exported to Great Britain and the English Golden Guernsey Club, later to become the Golden Guernsey Goat Society, was formed.

Characteristics

As its name suggests, the goat is golden in color, with hues ranging from pale blond to deep bronze. They are smaller and more fine-boned than other British milking goats, and there is great variety in coat length. The males are sometimes horned but the vast majority are not. Their personalities have been described as "very docile, very friendly". The males have been said to be unusually smelly.

The goat is efficient milking livestock for its relatively small size, producing an average yield of 3.16 kilograms of milk per day; this is less than most Swiss goats, but the milk's high butterfat

Butterfat

Butterfat or milkfat is the fatty portion of milk. Milk and cream are often sold according to the amount of butterfat they contain.- Composition :The fatty acids of butterfat are typically composed as follows :...

 and protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

content (3.72% and 2.81%, respectively)
makes up for the small yield.

External links

• Golden Guernsey Goat Society