Project Report on Goat And Sheep Farming

GOAT AND SHEEP FARMING

The   domestication  of  animals  was  carried  out   during Neolithic  times  along with the cultivation  of  cereals.  First goats  and sheep,  second cattle and  pigs,  and  finally  draft animals such as horses and asses were domesticated.

The wild goat (Capra hircus), the chief ancestral stock from which the various breeds of domestic goats have been derived,  is found in the barren hills of Baluchistan and the western Sind. In northeast  Quetta, it is replaced by markhor  (capra  falconeri), also found in Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan  and  Kashmir. The Circassian goat is said to be the descendent of the  markhor. By  far the  most important variety is the  bezoar  goat  (Capra hircus aegagrus), which ranges from the Sind in the east  through Iran  and Asia  Minor to Crete and the  Cyclades  in  the  west, although in many parts of this area it has disappeared. From Iran it  extends  into Russian Turkestan and the  Caucasus,  and  into western Asia Minor.

The  goat was the earliest ruminant to be domesticated.  The Harappa  toys contain representations of a goat. Two  seals  from Mohanjo-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.

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