Origin and distribution: The Sirohi breed is native of Sirohi district in Rajasthan state; it derived its name for home tract. The breed is distributed over a wider area of Ajemer, Bhilwara, Tonk, Jaipur districts and nearby areas in Rajasthan and also adjoining region in northern Gujrat. The flock size varies from place to place and ranges from 10 - 200 goats. Normally goats are maintained under extensive grazing system and most of the flocks are stationary. Large sized flocks migrate seasonally to nearby areas for the want of forage and water.
Physical Characteristics: It is a medium to large sized breed having compact body and strong legs. The coat colour is predominantly brown with dark brown or tan patches of different shape and size all over the body. About 5-10 goats are black in
colour with white patches on body. Ears are medium in length, leafy and drooping. Both sexes have horns which are curved up ward and backyard with pointed tip. Some has wattles. Sirohi are good milkers and udder is well developed and round with long conical teats.
The average body length, body height and heart girth is 80, 85 and 80 cm in males and 60, 68, 62 cm in females respectively.
Production performances: The average body weight of an adult breeding male and female was 50 and 23 kg. Tomar et al (2004) observed mean pre and post weaning average daily gain in body weight as 87.52±3.16g and 51.35±3.01g respectively.
Misra et al (1980) described the breed and observed that in 6-tooth females, body weight averaged 26.68 kg, body length 65.83 cm, chest circumference 66.79 cm, and height 71.61 cm.
They also reported that in male and female kids, live weight averaged 2.96 and 1.51 kg respectively at birth, 9.59 and 9.12 kg at 3 months, 16.74 and 14.81 kg at 6 months, and 23.92 and 22.49 kg at 12 m. Sharma and Pathodiya (2007) reported least-square mean of body weight at birth and 3, 6, 9 and 12 months of age were 2.16±0.05, 10.84±0.23, 15.24±0.28, 18.33±0.40 and 21.74±0.35 kg, respectively. The average 90-day milk yield of 73 females, almost all kidding for the 1st time under extensive conditions, was 48.22 kg. The average lactation yield is 122 kg in a lactation period of 198 days.
Reproduction performance: Neeru et al (2002), Pathodiya (2003), Pathodiya et al (2004) studied lifetime and production performance of the breed in field conditions. Pathodiya et al (2008) estimated means for dry period, service period, kidding interval and gestation period on farmers flock which were 183±13, 195±14, 341± 13 and 150.1±0.4 days respectively. The average age at first kidding and kidding interval is 651 and 469 days respectively with multiple birth range between 10-25 %. Kumar et al (2001) reported litter size of 1.06 with 5.2% twins in Sirohi. The kidding percentage was 80.5 and the twinning percentage was 4.3. Survival rate of the kids up to 12 mo of age was 94.0%.