As the undeclared war in Vietnam raged on ADGA membership and
goat registration exploded. Fueled mostly by the "Back to the
Land" movement, instigated by disillusioned urbanites who became
footloose hippies, ADGA was poised for major growth.
The similar phenomenon was happening in Europe following in
the wake of the 1968 student revolt in Paris. Newly minted French
goat keepers took a different route than their American
counterparts. Building on native cheese making traditions, they
focused more on the milk, and less on the four legged producer as
a source of income and creative challenge as we are inclined to
do. In other rural enclaves all over Europe young goat
cheesemakers were also honing their skills.
At both the consumer, and the producer level, it took a couple
of decades for gourmet goat cheese to catch on in the US. As
producers we had a dearth of artisan tradition - hence few models
- and secondly, a legacy of "squeamishness" about the use of raw
milk in the processing. This lack of practical knowledge was
compounded by the scarceness of appropriately sized equipment -
especially the required pasteurizing vats. No ready access to
cultures/molds/coagulates/packaging materials, and such, added
more problems.
Higher quality cheese, both imported and domestic, and greater
sophistication within the food industry, allowed chevre to become
a chic, saleable commodity in a relatively short time. US cheese
producers with their goats and enterprising spirit geared up to
exploit the market. The rest is history as they say - cheese
history - not goat history, which is what we are about here!
Had there not in this period been more Americans breeding more
goats it is doubtful that the LaMancha would have developed as
quickly as it did since there were so few of them in the 1960's.
Sellers controlled the market and few LaManchas were culled
without serious cause. In some parts of the country LaManchas
were routinely crossbred to increase the numbers.
The numbers of goats being milk tested on a continuous basis
climbed and classification - later linear appraisal - developed
following the cow model. Regional goat clubs sprung up with more
shows flowering as a result. FFA and 4H encouraged dairy goat
projects in their youthful members. Some thought this new-found
prosperity would go on forever (the 90's were to tell a slightly
different story.)
Rapidly increasing goat numbers came with a very high price
tag: disease on an epidemic scale. As both large and small
operations pooled colostrum and milk to hand-feed kids, an
insidious retrovirus spread through an entire generation and into
the future. Enlarged knees, the most visible symptom, were
frequently seen even at shows. The debilitating phenomenon was
soon given a name: Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. As we began to
understand more about CAE (and that other retrovirus, HIV, to
which humans are susceptible) the awful truth sunk in: we were
(and are) going to be dealing with this problem for a very long
time.
A second disease - Caseus Lymphadenitis - equally debilitating
and disfiguring, was also spreading rapidly at this time. CL
abscesses were routinely opened and their contents spilled in the
barnyard thereby, potentially, contaminating an entire herd as
the organism is long lived in the environment.
In the decades to follow many a goatkeeper lost enthusiasm for
a naturally hardy species that, seemingly, now required ever
increasing amounts of care to thrive.
Fortunately, not everyone abandoned the challenge. Enthusiasm
for the LaMancha soldiered on.
At the ADGA 1968 annual meeting held in Maryland 14 people
banded together to form the American LaMancha Club. The dues
were set at $2/year ($4 to include a listing in the quarterly
newsletter.) Louise Erbe was elected president, Pat Rooney,
vice-president and Pearl Ryon secretary/newsletter editor.
Harvey Considine master-minded the session with Vivian and
George Proctor, Paul Ashbrook and Eloise Osborn (Judy Kapture's
mother) as fellow participants.
Club sponsored advertisments began to appear in the ADGA
handbooks. Someone dreamed up the slogan "The Prima Donna
Breed." Like the idea of changing the term "gopher ear" to a more
glamorous "rose ear", which I tried to promote in the 1970's,
neither whimsy caught on.
In 1975, when the club could boast of 178 members, the popular
All-American program was inaugurated with Bill Griner as the
founding chairman and 37 entries in the initial program. Based on
the dairy cow model the program seeks to reward good type by
publishing photos of the winning contestants. Five years later,
following some years of discussion, a milk production award was
put in place. Appropriately, the paper prize is an "earring":
diamond, gold, or silver-in order of merit-for outstanding
records (DHIR.)
ADGA's "poor relation" the American Goat Society began
registering LaManchas in a closed purebred herdbook in 1975.
Using photostatic copies of ADGA records as proof, third
generation LaManchas with no grade LaManchas among his/her
parents or grandparents as of July 31, 1974, became eligible for
AGS registration. The current (2003) protocol for registering AGS
LaManchas has been liberalized: "as long as no animals on the
(ADGA) papers are designated GL (grade) or experimental" the
individual may by registered with AGS. This is the same number of
generations that ADGA requires to certify a buck as an
"American." Thus one could have a purebred buck in AGS when the
same one in ADGA was still registered as an American.
The earliest AGS LaMancha breed standard was rather long, did
not seriously contradict ADGA's description of the ideal generic
dairy goat, but did describe the "elf" ear as being of "any
length or shape as long as it is less than 3 inches long,
measured from the skull on the top of the ear, and the ear is not
stretched out."
ADGA describes the "elf ear" as having an "approximate maximum
length of two inches, the end of the ear must be turned up or
turned down and cartilage is allowed." (Neither standard permits
elf ear bucks to be registered.)
The current AGS standard states categorically that the gopher
ear contains no cartilage. Elf ears are described as appearing
in "many shapes and sizes" and "looking small in comparison with
the size of the doe's head." No size or coat color restrictions
are specified.
The ADGA standard describes the gopher ear has having very
little, or no, cartilage with a maximum length of one inch. Any
color is acceptable. Minimum size restrictions: height 28 inches
- weight 130 pounds in a mature doe; height 30 inches - weight -
160 pounds in a mature buck.
The ADGA standard asserts the LaMancha face is "straight"
period. AGS is more expansive: "the head and muzzle should be
wide, as in the other breeds, and the nose will probably be
concave." Although the ADGA LaMancha standard does not refer to
the "roman nose" as is the case with all ADGA's swiss breed
standards it does include the LaMancha in the category of
"moderate to serious defect" for the "roman nose." ( The convex
facial arch is a defining feature of the Nubian breed.) Over the
years opinion has swayed from a push to disallow any
discrimination against a roman nose LaMancha to outright
acknowledgment of its inappropriateness. This issue, as with many
others, remains unresolved.
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Roman Nose, Elf ears, LaMancha cross
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Typey Purebred LaMancha with gopher ears
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In 1975 when the AGS LaMancha purebred herdbook was opened it
was hinted, in some circles, that the move had been instigated by
a few ADGA breeders, who were also AGS members. Impatient to
create an ADGA purebred book they sought to use this AGS move as
a goad to stimulate ADGA to action.
In 1980 the breed standard discussion once again became
contentious when two respected breeders, who were also judges,
proposed changing the standard to include elf ear bucks. The
argument being: the gopher ear was subject to disease and if
breeders continued this potentially disasterous practice of
breeding "gopher ear to gopher ear" we would end up with "no
holes at all in the openings of the ears." Apparently this
prediction has not materialized.
At the other end of the spectrum, there materialized some
outspoken grumbling concerning the admittance of "elf" ear does
to purebred status. The elf ear does not persist through multiple
generations and, in fact, is usually "lost" in one or two
generations of breeding gopher to elf. A denial (or ignorance) of
the true genetic implication of the ear forms is widespread.
By the end of the '70s the matter of opening an ADGA purebred herdbook for La
Manchas was finally coming to a head. Several long-time breeders
pushed this obvious next step to put the breed on the same
footing as the other dairy breeds. The real problems emerged
later in the implementation, which coincided with a long-delayed
changeover to computerized record keeping.
The 1976 American LaMancha Club meeting was held in Santa Rosa
at ADGA's annual convention. The standing-room only turnout,
after lengthy debate, voted to request that a purebred LaMancha
herdbook be considered favorably by the ADGA directors. As a
result the first purebred LaMancha was registered on January 1,
1980.
The intervening four years brought to light two, not
inconsiderable, problems:
1) A question remained about how to "recover" the existing,
and earlier, LaManchas with"L" numbers and three generations of
LaManchas in their pedigrees.
The last question came down to "money" and since ADGA was, at
the same time, busily recovering, recording and registering a
sixth breed - the Oberhasli - something had to give.
As a result the registration papers of the LaManchas with "L"
numbers were converted to LaManchas with "AL" numbers.
(Thankfully, their progeny were elevated to "L's" with the title
of "purebreds" in the next generation.) The pre-1980 "L"
LaManchas originally had blue papers subtitled "American
LaMancha" in recognition of their putative origin. The post-1980
blue papers read "Purebred LaMancha" or "American LaMancha" and
the brown papers for recorded goats of unknown or cross bred
heritage have the breed percentages spelled out in accordance
with the system.
2) The issue of a closing date was not then, or yet, properly
addressed: leaving one breed in the association in a unique
status. In the other breeds ADGA registers goats in both open
American Herdbooks, which reflect the grading-up process, and
closed Purebred Books, which conform to the record keeping
process going back to the beginnings of the association.
LaManchas have both American and Purebred open books.
The problems of an "open" herdbook and a more explicit breed
standard have yet to be addressed decisively, after more than 20
years of debate. The club, which is an advisory position to ADGA,
from time to time, takes on this matter with little result.
