Rare Breeds
The Bagot is the UK’s only primitive goat breed to have developed in the English lowlands. Over centuries, the goats have thrived with minimal human intervention.
Bagots are distinctive goats. Both sexes have large, curved horns sweeping backwards, black heads and forequarters, and contrasting white hindquarters. Some have a white blaze on their face, too.
The Bagot goat is of great historical significance. Believed to be Britain’s oldest breed of goat, they were first documented in 1389 with Staffordshire estate owner Sir John Bagot keeping the original herd as a feral and semi-feral parkland breed.
Theories on the breed’s origins debate whether Bagots came to Britain during the Crusades or travelled by boat with the John of Gaunt army returning from the Castile region of Portugal.
Today, the majority of Bagots are managed as grazing stock on pasture. A few small herds are kept in paddock enclosures. The breed is becoming increasingly valued for conservation grazing and managing habitat, particularly the clearance of invasive woodland and scrubland species.
The Bagot goat is classified as ‘at risk’, but recent years have seen a steady increase in its estimated breeding number, from 148 in 2010 to 356 in 2019.
