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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 so­called African Pygmy and the Nigerian Dwarf. Both of these are true achondroplastic dwarf goats; simply meaning an animal characterized by a nor​mal­sized 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 Long­Legged, 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 well­thought­out 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 progeny­testing 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 long­term 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 totally­random 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 brown­and­white 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 black­and­white 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 widely­separated sources. Mr. Wood had located and acquired some goats of a third color line, gold­and­white, 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.

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