Beautiful Goats: Portraits of champion breeds (Beautiful Animals) (Beautiful) (Beautiful Animals)

by Felicity Stockwell and Andrew Perris

If you've never thought of goats as supermodels, the glamorous caprines on these pages will soon change your mind.

Each professionally-photographed portrait in this book features alongside a full description of the breed, its origins, current uses, and geographical spread. A succinct introduction looks at the history of the goat as a provider of skinsmeat, and dairy-and at its increasing modern role as pet and companion, too-while a section of reportage at the back of the book shows the behind-the-scenes story of the goats who modelled for this book.

With stunning photography as well as detailed facts about each breed, this beautifully collection of portraits is as informative as it is visually engaging. Author Felicity Stockwell writes with more than 40 years of experience in goatkeeping, as well as 20 years experience as an writer of specialist works on the subject.

From the svelte lines and sophisticated, marbled coat of the Anglo Nubian and the neat stripes of the rare Bagot to the sweet 'n' furry little pygmy goats, Beautiful Goats is the perfect gift for goat-lovers that will have you yearning to start your own real-life collection.

• ISBN13: 9781782409427
• Publish Date: 3 March 2020 (first published 4 August 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 18 January 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: The Ivy Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 112
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Beautiful Goats is an introduction with a short history and a gallery in honor of the noble goat. Originally published in the UK in 2014 this re-format and re-release is due out 3rd March 2020 from Quarto on their Ivy Press imprint, it's 112 pages and will be available in paperback format.

There are over 300 different breeds of goat and they have been our constant companions for thousands of years. They give us milk and cheese and other dairy products, meat, skins, and fibres as well as being used to clear land and prepare rough terrain for agricultural use. They're hardy, mostly disease resistant, intelligent, charming, and funny. This book is a tribute to everything goat.

The authors have an accessible and informative (but not dry) style. The book has a good introduction with some history, uses, rare breeds, and a very short capsule intro to showing. The intros are followed by a gallery listing of 40 goats (some duplicate breeds, such as Saanen), with a full color detail photo, breed intro with features, uses, related breeds, size/weight, and range/origin. The picture content also helpfully includes the age and sex of the subject (including reproductive status/castration). The end of the book contains some sepia-tone photos from specific show entry winners, along with an index and solid links lists for further reading.

Honestly the completeness of the bibliography and links are probably worth the cost of the book by themselves. Very well done. This would be a very good choice for a 4H or FFA intro to selecting and showing goats or at least doing the necessary pre-purchase research. There is no animal husbandry content included here, this is a compendium of show quality healthy beautiful goats in show condition.

A useful and appealing book and a good introduction to the conformation and looks of standard purebred goats.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.