Content
The unpretentiousness and small size of goats makes these animals attractive for backyard breeding. The main advantage is hypoallergenic milk with excellent nutritional qualities. To improve species characteristics, breeders have been developing new breeds for many years. Czech scientists did not stand aside either.
Description
The ancestors of this breed are the French Alpine and Swiss Alpine, plus local goat breeds. Through this selection, the productivity characteristics of local goats have been improved. The Czech goat breed has become an independent species with its own distinctive characteristics.
You can understand the description of the breed from the photo.
Species characteristics:
- The coat color is brown, and can vary in color intensity from milk chocolate to brown;
- The Alpiek admixture gave a black stripe along the spine and black toes;
- The main distinguishing feature of the breed is the presence of black triangles behind the ears;
- The weight of the female is from 50 to 55 kg, the male – 70-80 kg;
- The large udder with two nipples is silky to the touch, when milked it is shapeless with folds;
- Czech goats have good intellectual abilities: they respond to their name and can even carry out some of their owner’s commands.
Productivity of the Czech breed
The Czech breed is primarily of dairy production. The milking period is about 10 months a year. Young goats produce about a ton of milk per year; older animals, if properly maintained, can achieve a result of more than 2 tons per year.
You can get from 2 to 4 liters per day. The milk of Czech goats is not too fatty - only 3.5%, and contains 3% protein.
The consistency is more like cream. The advantage of this milk over cow's milk is its hypoallergenic qualities; it is much better absorbed. In baby food, these properties have undeniable value.
Maintenance and care
Keeping Czech goats is not as difficult as it might seem. The main thing is to ensure normal living and feeding conditions.
Room
The size of the room should be such that about 4 m2 is allocated for one individual. A prerequisite for keeping ungulates is a warm floor. To do this, you can arrange a bedding of straw or raised floorings of boards. The room temperature in the cold season should be at least +5 degrees. Czech goats are very clean, so it is important to ensure the cleanliness of the premises where they are kept.
In addition, the color of the coat attracts blood-sucking insects to goats in hot weather.
Nutrition
Goats of the Czech breed are not known for their whimsical diet. The basis of their diet is: in summer - grass and growth of trees and shrubs, and in winter - hay. To diversify your diet in winter, you can resort to mixed feed, vegetables, and plant food waste. Salt can be added little by little to the water or given separately. The most natural food for these animals is roughage, such as hay, so it should always be in abundance.
Newborn goats feed on their mother's milk. Feeding is continued until one month of age, then transferred to regular food, combining it with milk from a bottle or formula. To strengthen the weakest young animals, raw eggs are given twice a week. However, you need to be sure of the quality of these eggs.
Breeding the Czech breed
Purebred breeding is not necessary at all. One breeding Czech goat can improve the quality of the offspring of outbred friends. However, the taste of Czech breed milk can only be produced from purebred animals. In addition, purebred Czech goats can bring not only milk, but also good income from the sale of offspring.
Crossing Czech goats with another breed
For productivity, purebred goats are often crossed with common goats. Breeders, being creative people, sometimes cross representatives of different species. This is exactly what the owners of two breeds from Khakassia did. They mixed Czech and Saanen goats. This happened out of necessity, since there was no match for the Czech goat from “our own”. The result pleased the owners: the goats are resistant to cool climates and are very productive. In addition, they bring strong offspring in the form of triplets every lambing.The color of the short, dense coat turned out to be cream.
You can admire the graceful body and noble color of the Czech breed by watching the following video:
