Rare Farm Animals and Rare Reference Books

"See those Hogs? No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs, or hasn't been around a manure pile."

This quote from the multifaceted and quotable President Harry Truman begins a chapter on historic and endangered swine in the book above. It is really too bad that the current candidates haven't spent more time around pigs and working with manure. Like Truman, I have trouble respecting anyone who speaks volumes on manure, but have never worked intimately with that which they are so fond of dishing out to others. Anyway, I digress.

There are vast holes in the world of reference that are seeking to be filled by a source or sources. Some subjects have a vast amount of reference material available, while others struggle to be covered in a few paltry sources. The latter is the case with documentation concerning endangered and rare livestock and poultry breeds. This is a subject in need of a comprehensive or near comprehensive reference. While many great organizations and websites such as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy are out there, a need exists for a one stop source.

Yale University Press has published The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock Breeds (2002) by Janet Vorwald Dohner. It fills a void in knowledge while providing a handy reference to this interesting subject. This is an encyclopedic work which provides quick access to the history and conservation of many breeds and varieties of livestock.

As with many identification/reference guides more color photographs should have been included. The book has a small section of color photographs. An improvement would have been to organize it similar to the poultry guide in my previous post. Include high resolution color photographs with each description for fast and positive identification. If an updated edition is published soon, I hope that the publishers consider doing this in an updated edition. Aside from this, it is a great source.