Just how did these cute, fuzzy, hardy little animals come about? They were first created by Katharine Jorgensen of Oregon City, Oregon. Although Katherine was a NPGA Pygmy breeder and a 4-H Pygmy judge, she loved fiber. Because she enjoyed spinning, knitting, and weaving, it wasn’t surprising that on a trip through an Indian reservation in the southwest some longhaired colored goats wowed her. She wanted to make colored mohair.

Katherine Jorgensen

Katharine and Jerry Jorgensen and their llama Hummer

She already raised Pygmies, but their colored, cashmere-like undercoat was too short to use. Her solution was to breed her NPGA pygmy does to an AAGBA angora buck. She just knew she would get long, colored mohair. What she got were white, fluffy kids whose fleece wasn’t like true mohair or true cashmere. It had properties of both types of fiber. After a couple of generations, she started getting color. She also noticed three distinct fiber types, a type “A” goat that produces fiber like kid mohair, a type “B” goat that produces fiber that is a blend of mohair and cashmere, and a type “C” or cashmere like fiber. (Please see the PBA website for a full description of fiber types and photos.) Katherine was quite proud that a commercial cashmere processing company was happy to buy her “C” fleece as cashmere. She also noticed that Pygoras kept producing kid mohair even into their teens.

Her enthusiasm for her new creation was contagious and everyone who bred for the cross noticed that the goats bred true. She knew she had a new breed and it needed a name. She considered calling them “Homestead Goats”, because they were large enough to produce fleece, meat, milk, and pelts. In the end she decided to combine the name of the two parent breeds and invented the word Pygora. So in 1987 the Pygora Breeders Association was started with 10 members. Next, in order to track genealogy and breed for consistent traits, she started a registry and a newsletter. Then in the 1990, when she felt she had seen enough Pygoras, she put together a committee to write breed standards and by-laws for the Pygora Breeders Association. Serving on that committee was Dr Kay Orlando, a veterinarian, Sonia Hall, Marilyn Moore, and Chris Utterback. Right from the start, Katherine knew how important the breed standards were. She wanted to emphasize good conformation, hardiness, and natural kidding. She also wanted to make sure people didn’t turn this useful animal, that produced lots of fiber each year, into a pure pet that was too small to kid on its own and only produced small amounts of fiber. She insisted on a minimum height requirement and no maximum height. Her view was “more is better”. To keep breed purity, she insisted on allowing goats into the Pygora herd book from only two well-established registries, the American Angora Goat Breeder’s Association and the National Pygmy Goat Association. Since AAGBA goats must be white, Pygora colors were limited to white and those found in the Pygmy. Soon after the breed standards were done, a Judge’s Training Manual and test were created by a committee of Katherine, Mary Jane Ontiverous, and Chris Utterback. Then the first PBA sanctioned judges were licensed. Since then the manual has been reviewed twice and updated once. Serving on those committees were Jackie Liner, Jill Gallagher, Fran Bishop, Lisa Roskopf, Lisa Zietz, and chris Utterback.

Katherine Jorgensen and one of her Pygora goats