Meat · Breed · Short entry
Poitevine
An old dairy goat from Poitou with a mid-length dark brown coat (cape de maure) and two white stripes down the face. It gives milk with a high cheese yield and is hardy in different climates. Tens of thousands were kept in the nineteenth century, but foot-and-mouth disease in 1920 caused a collapse; about 4,800 remain.
Decline and conservation
Races de France describes the Poitevine as an ancient breed, probably descended from the common goat that came from the Middle East. It was widespread in Poitou in the nineteenth century, with several tens of thousands of animals, but a violent foot-and-mouth epidemic in 1920 caused numbers to collapse. The Association pour la Défense et le Développement de la Chèvre Poitevine was founded in 1986 and a genetic conservation programme began in 1991. In 2022 there were about 4,800 Poitevine goats, 1,167 of them milk-recorded.