I have a severe soft spot for farm animals. If I ever own a piece of land, there will most certainly be animals on that land. And one livestock in particular that I love is the goat. They are funny, cute, spunky, and can produce meat and milk. I love making goat milk soap and can't resisting petting and brushing a goat when I have the opportunity.

This book combines reference and beauty in a coffee table-esque format. Each page highlights a specific breed of goats. The information includes the history of the breed, the specific characteristics, and their uses in a commercial sense (meat, dairy production, show quality, etc).

The goats on the pages of this book live up to the title of the book as they are gorgeous! The pictures are vivid and provide truly beautiful examples of each breed. It helped me narrow down which breeds I would want if I could own them, but also helped me understand the greater history of domesticated goats and their impact on societies.

*I would like to thank the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Maybe you think goats are cute, but you don't know much about them. You need this book! If you didn't read one word of the text, it's still wonderful- so many wonderful photos of goats in all their glory- the cuteness, the sass, the sheer nobility. If you do decide to read it, what an interesting book it is! Each photo is accompanied by information about the goat- the breed, origins, uses, and where to find them. Sounds like this would be kind of dry, right? Wrong! It's actually very interesting, due to the author's vast knowledge of goats (she's been keeping them for over 40 years) and engaging writing style. If reading the book has got you wanting a goat of your own, there's an extensive list of resources at the back of the book to help you out. Also included at the end is a section about the goats who modeled for the book.

#BeautifulGoats #NetGalley

I was pretty surprised when I came across the Norian breeds, they resembled dogs with their droppy ears! Pygmy's looks so weird but Angoras are the cutest.

The book consists of an introduction, the different types with their origin and lastly some pictures from the competitions.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

Beautiful Goats is a short and charming book about you guessed it, goats. There's a bit of information about the various breeds as well as some amazing photos.

Would be great for an AG class or 4H Club, detailed introduction for many goat breeds with excellent pictures.
I appreciate that each picture explains the age and sex of the "model" goat, makes the picture so much more useful.

This is a great book for anyone interesting in learning a bit about the various goat breeds. Each breed covered includes a photo and description. It was interesting learning how the different breeds came into being.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I love animals but had no idea there are so many different breeds of goats. The pictures are very good and I enjoyed reading about each of these breeds. The beginning of the book also has some interesting information about the various purposes of goats.

I love goats and when I received this book I was most excited to see the cute photos. I wasn't disappointed and was happily surprised that this book offered so much information about the different goat breeds.

A lovely book!!! The pictures are so beautiful and really bring the different animals to life, they pop of the pages!!!

Beforehand, I did not really know what to expect. But when I started reading, the book surprised me. I love goats, they're so cute and smart! This book has a lot of information about goats, more than you would expect.

The book has wonderful pictures of different breeds of goats and for every breed there's a description with it's features and distribution.

I especially love the Pygmy Goat! So adorable!

I want a pygmy goat soooooooo bad! So many adorable goats! This book puts a spotlight on some award-winning goat breeds from around the world, along with info about every particular goat’s role in the barnyard (whether for wool or dairy or meat or just cause they’re cute), their origins, and history. If you own goats, or just like them, then you’ll find much to enjoy here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look enviously at the herd of adorable little goats what live on the farm down the street.

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