Origin and Distribution of Goats in World and India: An Approach Which was Till Date Neglected Volume 3 - Issue 2

Somenath Ghosh¹*, Rupam Kumari²

• ¹Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Department of Zoology, Rajendra College, Jai Prakash University, India
• ²Guest Faculty, Department of Zoology, Rajendra College, Jai Prakash University, India

Received:February 24, 2023;   Published:March 06, 2023

Corresponding author:Somenath Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Head, Department of Zoology, Rajendra College, Jai Prakash University, Bihar, India

DOI: 10.32474/LOJPCR.2023.03.000154

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Abstract

Goats were the earliest animals to be domesticated during neolithic times along with the cultivation of cereals. Following the domestication of cattle and pigs, draft animals such as horses and asses were also domesticated. The Harappa toys contain representations of goats. Two seals from Mohenjo-daro show a wild bezoar goat with enormous, curled horns and a bearded domestic male goat with side-spreading horns. The Gaddi goat, which greatly resembles the ancestral wild goat, was used as a beast of burden in the mountains and is still used in the Himalayan region of India for carrying salt and food grains. In the Indo- Gangetic plains, goats were among the first ruminants to be domesticated in 2000 BC. The wild goat (Capra hircus) was the chief ancestral stock from which the various breeds of domestic goats originated. Then they had a wide distribution from the barren hills of Baluchistan to the western Sind. The domestication of the goat species, their movement and distribution across continents have resulted in the evolution of nearly 570 breeds throughout the world which includes pure and cross-bred goat population. But unfortunately, till date goat breeds and their cosmopolitan populations are regarded as one of the most neglected ones in terms of scientific studies, literature and experimentation.

Keywords:Breeds, capra hircus, domestication, goats, neglected

Abstract| Introduction| Origin of Indian Goats| Distribution of Goats in Middle East and Asia Minor| Indian Goat Breeds, their Distribution and Morphological Characters| Conclusions| References|