Chinese Indigenous Goat Breeds

Abstract

Goats are one of the world’s oldest domesticated animals and the most widely distributed livestock around the world. China has enormous land suitable for goat production and its goat population was about 140 million in 2013, which makes China as the largest goat production country in terms of total output of cashmere, meat, and hides. In this chapter, we review the origin, evolution and genetic diversity of indigenous goat breeds present in China, and a brief introduction of some special indigenous goat breeds in the country is also given. China owns a great variety of indigenous goat genetic resources. Four mtDNA lineages A-D were found in Chinese goat breeds, supporting the multiple maternal origins of domestic goats, being the haplogroups A and B the dominant and distributed in nearly all breeds. There are more than 70 goat breeds in the country, including 58 indigenous breeds, seven improved breeds, and five introduced breeds. With the development of modern Chinese economy, trade and exchange of goats became more and more common. Some local breeds became threatened with extinction or have already disappeared before necessary conservation efforts could be performed. Therefore, it is imperative to carry out genetic monitoring, excavation, and evaluation of local goat resources.