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SOME DAIRY GOAT COLOR GENETICS
by
Wilmer J. Miller

The scientific name of the domestic dairy goat is Capra hircus (aegagrus). It has 30 pairs of chromosomes; that is, 2n = 60.

The wild ancestor is the bezoar, also called the Pesang or Pasang. the range of the bezoar originally was from the Balkans through the Near East to the Indus valley. Some breeds of India are thought to have some ancestral contribution from the markhor, C. falconeri. In Africa the Abyssinian ibex, C. ibex, likewise is thought to have contributed genetic material to the domestic goat.

Domestic Breed Groups:

Usual Colors

Alpine

Black and white

Balkan

Gray, brown or red

Syrian

Black or piebald

After

Searle

1968

Nubian

Red, brown, black, blue-gray or white

Kurdish

Black, but Angoras are white

Central Asiatic Down

White

Indian

Black

Dwarf

Black or white

Main color loci in mammals and variants in goats:*

V	VIII	I	II	XVIII	I
A locus	B locus	C locus	D locus	E locus	P Locus
					(linkage group in Mice)
Red	Wild (black)	Wild	Wild	Black	Wild
Badger face	Brown	(intense)		Wild
(black belly)	Light brown		?	red (solid red	?
Wild		Chinchilla		no pattern)
Gray		Cremello-like dilution
black and tan		Single gene dose
Black and tan		(heterozygote)
(with black belly)		Red to yellow
Red cheek		(homozygote)
Mantled		Red and black to cream
Reverse mantled
Black

Additional:

Roan: a partial dominant; the homozygote is white

Frosted: muzzle and ears whitened, a dominant

Spotted: belted is a dominant

Mosaic spotting is of unknown inheritance

Speckling: in white areas is probably dominant

* Adapted from Searle (1968) and especially Dr. D. P. Sponenberg's Seminar for the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, Annual Meeting and Conference, 28 Sept. 85, Wichita, Kansas.