70 BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



In fact, the common goats that you want to start your flock with should be nice and 

 smooth built, with small head and short, smooth hair and small horns. From muleys 

 you can raise heavy shearers, but their mohair is not quite so fine. — H. T. Puchs, 

 Tiger Mills, Tex. 



If bred for the purpose of quick projiagation, and with very fine, robust goats of 

 both sexes to begin with, in six years five or six crosses can easily be obtained if 

 nutrimental advantages are favorable; and if really first-class bucks, having all the 

 most valuable jaoints this side of perfection, can be procured, and inbreeding care- 

 fully avoided, even our common short-haired and smooth-coated goat will, after the 

 fourth cross — say, beginning with the thirty-second — show improvement, which in a 

 large flock on general inspection would defy detection by anyone but an expert 

 judge of Angora goats.— C. A. Hoerle, Ridgewood, N. J. 



It is always quite necessary that the common does should be of the 

 short-haired variety. Long-haired ones will give trouble in persisting 

 to throw out long hairs among the mohair. 



The buck used upon these does should be the best one can afford. 

 The better the buck, the better the result. There will be many twins 

 among the kids from this first cross, and if proper care is exercised 

 at kidding time it will not be difficult to increase the flock as much as 

 100 per cent. The higher the cross, the fewer twins will be dropped. 

 As the fleece upon the first cross is not worth more than the effort to 

 clip it, the males among them should be castrated when about 2 

 weeks old and disposed of for meat as soon as old enough. The females 

 among them, being half-blood Angoras, are kept for service with 

 another thoroughbred buck. The result of this second cross is three- 

 quarter blood Angoras. The mohair from them has a marketable 

 value, but is very limited in quantity and usually mostly kemp. It is 

 best to deal with this cross in the same manner as with the first cross. 

 If this method of procedure is followed up to the fifth or sixth cross 

 a flock will result that will produce most excellent mohair. 



It has no doubt occurred to the reader that we now have four or five 

 different grades of does, beginning with the common breed. There- 

 fore after a thoroughbred flock has once been produced in this manner, 

 each year brings forth another one from the same sources, and this 

 condition continues as long as the breeding life of the does continues. 



PROPER AGE FOR BREEDING. 



Goats of both sexes will sometimes breed when they are 5 months 

 old, and often at 6 months, but from the fact that they are at this age 

 but a month or two from weaning time and are not nearly full grown, 

 it is obvious that they should not be permitted to breed. They reach 

 maturity when about 16 or 18 months old, and they ought not to breed 

 before this time. If bred earlier the kids will not be so strong or so 

 well developed. They are in their prime when from 2 to 6 years old, 

 but with proper feeding in winter they have been known to breed 

 regularly until 15 years old. The average life of goats, however, is 

 about 12 years. There should be no tendency to keep does until they 



