The Origins
The Murciano-Granadina breed has its roots in Spain
Originally it comes from Capra Aegagrus, whose secondary form, the Pyrenean goat, settled in Spain in the valleys of Segura, Darro and Genil. From Granada it spread through Andalusia and from Murcia it spread to the Spanish Eastern regions (Levante). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was taken by settlers to America, being present as a base for different creole breeds in Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela, and it was also introduced in North Africa and the rest of the countries across the Mediterranean basin.
Historical reference
Aragó in 1893, described only two Spanish goat breeds, the Murciana and the Granadina, both with dairy breeds, with fine and delicate morphology and with milk yields between 3 and 4 litres per day.
Aparicio in 1947 refered to the breed from Granada as one of the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula and its ethnic trunk belonging is the aegagrus goat.
The Granadina and the Murciana breeds had a differentiated origin and were seen as two differentiated breeds in their origins. The earliest legal reference that are availale of the two original breeds were published in the Official Decree 2394/1960 by which the Regulation of Pedigree Books and Verification of Yyelds was approved, where in its section IV art. 96 indicated that the Pedigree Book and Verification of the Dairy Yield in the Goat species will involve the following: breeds: Murciano, Granadina and Malagueña.
A common destinity
Both breeds are mentioned for the first time in legal texts as a single Breed, the Murciano-Granadina Breed and it is in the Official Resolution in March 28th, 1979, of the General Directorate of Agricultural Production in which the Genetic Assessment Scheme & Functional Breeding Males of the Breed was approved. The Ministry of Agriculture, merged by Official Decree the fate of both breeds, which were at the time two perfectly defined racial entities.
The merging of the two breeds gave rise to the one we currently know although this was widely echoed in the news.
