IS THE NIGERIAN DWARF GOAT A TRUE BREED? By Robert L. Johnson A number of breeds of miniature goats have been identified throughout the world, but in America there are at present two types, the so called African Pygmy and the Nigerian Dwarf. Both of these are true achondroplastic dwarf goats; simply meaning an animal characterized by a nor mal sized trunk in combination with short legs and a broad, short head. Occurring in the western central region of Africa that includes Nigeria, the Cameroons, Angola, Zaire, Nambia, and Niger, the native animal is called the West African Dwarf (WAD) or Fouta djallon, and is distinguished there from the West African Long Legged, another small breed without the achondroplastic characteristic. These goats number in the millions; various reports have reached us that in some areas they are as thick as pigeons on the square and they are used for both meat and milk by the natives. Due to rinderpest and other indigenous diseases, imports from Africa are presently prohibited, although in years past, numerous imports have been made, many via other countries. A complete history of these has not been compiled, to our knowledge, and in fact may be impossi ble to put together today. (Some import history can be found in Alice Hall s book, The Pygmy Goat in America.) There is little doubt that some few imports have been done clandestinely; also, as some zoos have their own quarantine facilities, we have heard reports that some have been imported, with the intention that they would remain there the balance of their lives; but circum stances do change, zoos do move, or close, or revamp exhibits and eliminate some animals, and occasionally dwarf goats do reach the public from zoos. More often these are the progeny of origi nal import animals; on rare occasions, the imports themselves. References in print state that miniature goats were in this country as far back as 1905; and some imports in the 1930 s are documented. Importing them has always been very expensive and fraught with risks along the way; understandably, there was a desire to increase the American population as fast as possible, and many game farms, zoos, and other organizations crossed their imports on small native stock. Since there were no registry organizations, and no public market for purebreds, there was nothing objectionable or unethical about this practice. The miniature goats were abundant in Africa; their primary uses in America were for research, and as exhibit novelties. No one was selling crosses as registered purebred stock to unsuspecting buyers. The NPGA (National Pygmy Goat Association) was organized in the 1970 s and had facing it the Herculean task of trying to decide which of the many miniature goats extant here were pure breds and worthy of perpetuation and registration. They set about this task in a well thought out fashion. They contacted those persons that had the most experience with these goats and ob tained opinions on what characteristics constituted the true African miniature goat. They drew up from this a breed standard, named their creature the African
Pygmy, set up a progeny testing system for identifying and verifying the breeding status of goats submitted for registry, and have from those early days gone from strength to strength. From our perspective of today, whether they drew up a breed standard that was very restricted because information on the goats in their African homeland was difficult to come by, or because of the influence of some of the early owners of these, or because some pioneer members had a vision of what a miniature goat should be like (an American Pygmy, ) or a combination of all of these, is unclear and also irrelevant. There were some very vocal and opinionated pioneer NPGA members whose influence is apparent. What is clear is that the breed standard that the NPGA set up described, and restricted registry to, goats of a narrower range of colors and characteris tics than existed in their native homeland. Man has a great propensity for tinkering with nature, and one need but look at the hundreds of sheep and dog breeds around the world today to understand how successful he has been in manipulating genetic characteristics. Only today, with our science of genetic engineering, are we getting close to mapping and manipulating the genes of living creatures; eventually this task will be accomplished and one will be able to order an animal to a given set of specifications. Whether or not this will take all the fun and challenge out of the ancient art of breeding is not a subject for discussion in this article! Man has made many mistakes along the way, and since the genetic blueprint of most animals has not yet been created, our breeding efforts are as much art as sci ence, for many characteristics are linked in such fashion that the manipulation of one causes changes in others, often seemingly quite unrelated. All breeders have had to go by is changes in the phenotype (appearance) and the production capabilities of animals; on the farm level; many internal changes are impossible or very difficult to determine. Try as he may, Man has yet, for example, to breed polled breeds of dairy goats while avoiding the occurrence of intersex animals. Having decided on what it wanted an American Pygmy to be, the NPGA restricted registrations to those that fit their breed standard, and eventually closed its herdbooks. This caused no little unhappiness among individuals that did not acquire their animals, or send in their data, in time to get them in the herdbooks, as well as to those that had miniature goats whose coat colors and markings, and/or other minor points, caused their rejection. In the meanwhile, NPGA trained a body of judges, and Pygmy goat shows became more numerous. The show ring historically has exerted tremendous pressure on breeders and Pygmy goats did not escape this; regardless of the long term wisdom of their actions, many individuals set about breeding the type of animals that would win in the show ring. If preference was given to larger animals, or more cobby or blocky ones, this is what many breeders set about to produce. In the 1970 s two persons, working independently of each other, discovered a number of very small dwarf goats that differed from the American Pygmy in a number of characteristics. Mrs. Bonnie Abrahamson, working at a California zoo, was impressed by some little goats that pre dominantly carried black and white totally random markings, had flat muzzles, were smaller than the American Pygmy, took a longer period of time to grow to maturity, and that were con formed more like dairy goats in miniature rather than the cobby, rectangular Pygmy. Attempts to register these with the NPGA were made, and the animals rebuffed; they did not conform to the NPGA breed standard. Meanwhile, in Indiana Mr. Heabert Wood had located and acquired a herd of tiny brown and white goats that shared the same characteristics with
the California ones. In 1980, the I.D.G.R. Inc. was formed in Texas, and the writer sought to have the organiza tion open herdbooks for the many Pygmies that had been refused, or were too late for, acceptance into the NPGA s herdbooks; and wound up on the IDGR s breed standards committee, helping evaluate Pygmies, using the information that was available on the WAD in Africa. We acquired some of the small black and white goats from Mrs. Abrahamson who had given them the name of Nigerian Dwarves to distinguish them from the Pygmy and again, prevailed upon the IDGR to open a herdbook for these, and to treat them as a separate breed, based on the obvious differ ences. IDGR complied, with the first Dwarf registry, using information obtained from Mrs. Abra hamson, Mr. Wood, and other pioneer Dwarf breeders. For health reasons, Mrs. Abrahamson ultimately disposed of her complete herd of Dwarves and Pygmies. Working with the IDGR on identification of the little goats, we learned of other groups of Dwarves one in Utah, one in Florida, one in Tennessee, one in Virginia, etc. all of which had been closed herds, whose owners either had never heard of the NPGA, or had realized that their animals would not qualify as Pygmies and thus avoided further contacts. We were able to secure more animals from several of these alternate sources, so that our Pine Cone Valley farm came to have a population of over 70 Dwarves, from widely separated sources. Mr. Wood had located and acquired some goats of a third color line, gold and white, and individuals of this color type occa sionally cropped up in the other two color lines as well. Since the majority of the pioneer Dwarf breeders chose to concentrate on one color line, the importance of keeping the three color lines identified became and has remained paramount at IDGR, although no discrimination applies to crosses of these color lines that is a choice left up to the breeders and owners. In 1982 the Third International Conference on Goat Production and Disease was held in Tucson, Arizona, and the writer and family attended. High on our list of tasks was to make contact with the African delegates to inquire about the indigenous goats, and this we accomplished. We learned that there were two opinions; one, that there was one breed, the West African Dwarf, with regional variants; two, that there were actually three breeds of miniature goats. A brief ab stract of this latter study was presented in the Proceedings of the Conference, (page 549; Classi fication of Goats in Southern Nigeria: West African Dwarf Goats by I. Mecha and C.C. Agun wamba) in which the authors state that at least for a preliminary study, goats can be put into three main broad groups; large, medium and small, which were distinctly different with regards to body weight, fecundity, gestation period, and generation interval. The main discriminate variable was height at the withers, with medians of 52.4, 44.09 and 39.1cm, or 20.6, 17.36 and 15.4 inches, respectively. There are studies that indicate that miniature goats brought to Amer ica and put on optimum diets, which they do not receive in their homeland, do grow larger. Measurements of the animals identified here as Dwarves resulted in the establishment of the current IDGR breed standard heights. Tentatively, it was concluded that the largest of the groups identified in Africa are our American Pygmy, the medium group is our Nigerian Dwarf, and the small group has not yet been imported into this country. The authors of the paper were not present at the Conference; but other African researchers fa miliar with the WAD goats were, and they reported that the WAD goats occur in all colors
and patterns from white to black, the most common being the wild type, an agouti, with black stripes and pale belly, and with black, brown and pied being also common. They also claimed that there are regional variants, due to the great range of these miniatures; and this was con firmed by dealers in exotic animals who reported that even villages no more than a few miles apart will offer goats of differing colors. Geneticist Dr. Phil Sponenberg undertook a long term research project in the 1980 s on the genetics of miniature goat coat color, and based on large samplings made at the Pine Cone Valley herd and others over a 7 year period, determined that the WAD can indeed occur in a whole range of colors; his conclusions are currently being written up for publication in the Journal of Heredity and his studies still ongoing. Thus, the state of our knowledge at present is that there is one preliminary study out of Africa that suggests the existence of three separate types of miniature goats; there are the opinions of others who have worked and traveled there that there is a great variation in miniature goats over their home area, and there are the observations of American breeders who conclude that there is a goat different in color and type from the Pygmy. These latter observations are rein forced as American breeders continue to breed for an American Pygmy and an American Dwarf by emphasizing the differences in the two by selective breeding. Whether there are or are not different breeds in Africa, American efforts have created two breeds, differing in a number of characteristics. Once a registry organization opens a herdbook for a breed, it must have a good description of the breed, and knowledge as to the degree of repeatability. One definition of a breed is that animals will reproduce true to breed type; thus the value of progeny testing. As the NPGA did with Pygmies, the IDGR sought the opinions of those people with the most experience with the Dwarf breed and pooled their opinions, including the African data, in the creation of its Dwarf breed standard. For the first years, due to the dearth of knowledge, the Dwarf breed standard was not fixed for the IDGR wanted to make haste slowly and not repeat the NPGA s experience of hardening a breed standard before as much data was in as could be feasibly gathered in this country; for once a herdbook is opened and a standard drawn up, and animals have been accepted (or rejected) according to that standard, it is too late to back out. Breed standards can be broadened, if there is good evidence and reasons for doing so; they cannot very well be narrowed, as that would necessitate the removal of many animals from the registry an impractical task, and one that would generate much ill feeling! The IDGR de voted over 4 1/2 years in gathering and analyzing data before its final Dwarf breed standard was drawn up. Two other organizations also subsequently opened herdbooks for Nigerian Dwarves, and it is unfortunate that their breed standards do differ in some details from the IDGR breed standard, thus causing automatic cross registration to be impossible. Perceptions are important in defining breeds and drawing up standards, and one of the perceptions of the Canadian Goat Society is of the Dwarf as a miniature working dairy goat; as such, they admit larger animals than the IDGR or the AGS (American Goat Society.) These philosophies translated into working breed standards regrettably cause confusion among many goat owners, especially novices. The differing philosophies responsible for the creation of differing breed standards are the result of the opinions expressed by individuals; and individual rationales and goals for goatkeeping and
breeding likewise differ greatly. It is undoubtedly safe to state that on the basis of current knowledge, the IDGR s Dwarf breed standard represents the distillation of more research and experience overall; recognizing the pitfalls that can occur in radical changes in animals by selec tive breeding, in terms of fecundity, health, survival, etc. IDGR has drawn its breed standards both for Pygmies and Dwarves closer to the original African miniature goats than to the imagi nations of would be new breed creators. At this date in time, we cannot say that the Nigerian Dwarf is a separate African breed of minia ture goat. We can say that there is a Nigerian Dwarf in America that is distinctly different from the Pygmy, whose ancestry traces directly back to original imports, and which breeds true, and which has been less subject to manipulation by breeding efforts in this country. Dwarves today are hardy, good milk producers, very attractively marked and patterned, and their ancestries are well based. By keeping tight reins on the breed standard, while offering classes for American and Grade Dwarves, the IDGR both offers registration for all miniatures and yet maintains high standards for its registered purebreds; its judges emphasize the characteristics that identify the breed and do not fall into the bigger is better trap that has come to typify the show ring pres sures. The Dwarf, like the Pygmy in America, is a man made breed, probably not a species. Their smaller size and very striking color patterns endear them to their owners as well as the public; they are still a minor breed and as such, of interest to the ALBC (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy) and they are charming as only miniatures can be. They deserve to be maintained as a separate breed, and not crossed on the Pygmy goat; meanwhile, we look forward to the day someone with the knowledge and skill will be able to spend some time traveling around WAD country in Africa, to bring back a large number of photographs and data on these delightful little caprines.