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Icelandic Goat
The Icelandic goat ( is, íslenska geitin ), also known as the 'settlement goat', is an ancient breed of domestic goat believed to be of Norwegian origin and dating back to the settlement of Iceland over 1100 years ago. This breed of goat was on the verge of extinction during the late 19th century, but recovered prior to World War II, only to precipitously decline again. As of 2003, there were 348 goats in 48 flocks distributed throughout most parts of Iceland. At the end of 2012, the herd had increased to 849. Since this breed has been isolated for centuries, the Icelandic populations are highly inbred. The Icelandic goat is very rare outside its native land. Under its coarse, long guard hair, the Icelandic goat has a coat of high quality cashmere fiber. Icelandic goats are kept mainly as pets and their economic potential for meat, milk, cashmere and skin production remains to be explored. The Icelandic goat is currently of little economic value. The Icelandic goat is the only fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mýrasýsla
Iceland was historically divided into 23 counties known as ''sýslur'' (), and 23 independent towns known as ''kaupstaðir'' (). Iceland is now split up between 24 sýslumenn (magistrates) that are the highest authority over the local police (except in Reykjavík where there is a special office of police commissioner) and carry out administrative functions such as declaring bankruptcy and marrying people outside of the church. The jurisdictions of these magistrates often follow the lines of the historical counties, but not always. When speaking of these new "administrative" counties, the custom is to associate them with the county seats rather than using the names of the traditional counties, even when they cover the same area. Composition Independent towns (''kaupstaðir'') were first created in the 18th century as urbanisation began in Iceland; this practice continued into the 1980s. The last town that was declared an independent town was Ólafsvík in 1983. Since then, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domestic Goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the animal family Bovidae and the tribe Caprini, meaning it is closely related to the sheep. There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat.Hirst, K. Kris"The History of the Domestication of Goats".'' About.com''. Accessed August 18, 2008. It is one of the oldest domesticated species of animal, according to archaeological evidence that its earliest domestication occurred in Iran at 10,000 calibrated calendar years ago. Goats have been used for milk, meat, fur, and skins across much of the world. Milk from goats is often turned into goat cheese. Female goats are referred to as ''does'' or ''nannies'', intact males are called ''bucks'' or ''billies'', and juvenile goats of both sexes are called ''kids''. Castrated males are called ''wethers''. Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cashmere Wool
Cashmere wool, usually simply known as cashmere, is a fiber obtained from cashmere goats, pashmina goats, and some other breeds of goat. It has been used to make yarn, textiles and clothing for hundreds of years. Cashmere is closely associated with the Kashmir shawl, the word "cashmere" deriving from an anglicisation of ''Kashmir'', when the Kashmir shawl reached Europe in the 19th century. Both the soft undercoat and the guard hairs may be used; the softer hair is reserved for textiles, while the coarse guard hair is used for brushes and other non-apparel purposes. A number of countries produce cashmere and have improved processing techniques over the years but China and Mongolia are two of the leading producers as of 2019. Afghanistan is ranked third. Some yarns and clothing marketed as containing cashmere have been found to contain little to no cashmere fiber, so more stringent testing has been requested to make sure items are fairly represented. Poor land management and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir
Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir is an Icelandic farmer responsible for saving the Icelandic goat through breeding them at her farm, Háafell in Borgarbyggð, Iceland. Career Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir runs the Háafell farm in Borgarbyggð, Iceland. Prior to running the farm, she was a nurse, although it had been her family's farm for three generations. Jóhanna has raised six children on the farm. Since 2000, she has been breeding the Icelandic goat in an effort to save it from extinction. Through her work, the farm has also become known as the Icelandic Goat Conservation Center, and is the only goat breeding farm in Iceland. To fund the ongoing work, she organised a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter in 2012 in order to expand the facilities available at the farm. Jóhanna provided 20 goats to the production of the '' Game of Thrones'' fourth season episode "The Laws of Gods and Men". Over time, Jóhanna has created a market for goat products within Iceland. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Reykjavík Grapevine
''The Reykjavík Grapevine'' is an English language Icelandic magazine and online newspaper based in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík. Its target audience primarily consists of foreigners, immigrants, international students, young Icelanders, and tourists. The magazine is currently a year-round publication, fortnightly from May to October, and monthly from November to April. The magazine debuted on June 13, 2003. Its first six issues were edited by Jón Trausti Sigurðarson and Valur Gunnarsson. In its second year, the magazine grew in circulation from 25,000 issues to 30,101. In its third year, American-born Bart Cameron took over as editor, also editing Inside Reykjavik, the Grapevine Guide, in 2006, through the Mál og Menning imprint of Edda Press. Bart was followed over the next decade by editors Sveinn Birkir Björnsson, Haukur S. Magnússon, Anna Andersen, Helga Þórey Jónsdóttir, Sveinbjörn Pálsson again, Jón Trausti Sigurðarson Jón Trausti Sigurðarson (b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norwegian Elkhound
The Norwegian Elkhound is one of the Northern Spitz-type breeds of dog and is the National Dog of Norway. The Elkhound has served as a hunter, guardian, herder, and defender. It is known for its courage in tracking and hunting elk and other large game, such as bears or wolves. The Norwegian Elkhound was first presented at a dog exhibition in Norway in 1877. The AKC breed name "Norwegian Elkhound" is a mistranslation from its original Norwegian name , meaning "Norwegian moose dog". In Norwegian "elg" means "moose" and "hund" means "dog," as it does in many other Germanic languages. It is Spitz breed, not a "hound" dog. The breed's object in the hunt is to independently track down and hold the moose at bay—jumping in and out toward the moose, distracting its attention, while signaling to the hunters by barking very loudly—until the hunter who follows the sound can arrive to shoot it. The dog will only bark while the moose is stationary, but it can also slowly dri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norwegian Lundehund
The Norwegian Lundehund (Norwegian: ''Norsk lundehund'') is a small dog breed of the Spitz type that originates from Norway. Its name is a compound noun composed of the elements ''lunde'', meaning puffin (Norwegian ''lunde'', "puffin", or ''lundefugl'', "puffin bird"), and ''hund'', meaning dog. The breed was originally developed for the hunting of puffins and their eggs on inaccessible nesting places in caves and on cliffs. The breed was at the brink of extinction in the 1960s and preservation efforts have since been underway. History The Lundehund was a valuable working animal for hunting puffin birds along the Norwegian coast as food for over 400 years. The first known written record of the breed dates to 1591, when a bailiff wrote of his visit to Værøy that, “one cannot easily retrieve uffinsfrom the depth without having a small dog accustomed to crawling into the hole and pulling the birds out.” Its flexibility and extra toes were ideal for hunting the birds in their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norwegian Forest Cat
The Norwegian Forest cat ( no, Norsk skogskatt and ) is a breed of domestic cat originating in Northern Europe. This natural breed is adapted to a very cold climate, with a top coat of long, glossy, water-shedding hair and a woolly undercoat for insulation. The breed's ancestors may have been a landrace of short-haired cats brought to Norway about A.D. 1000 by the Vikings, who may also have brought with them long-haired cats, like those ancestral to the modern Siberian and Turkish Angora. During World War II, the Norwegian Forest cat was nearly extinct; then the Norwegian Forest Cat Club's breeding program increased the cat's number. It was registered as a breed with the European Fédération Internationale Féline in the 1970s, when a cat fancier, Carl-Fredrik Nordane, took notice of the breed and made efforts to register it. The breed is very popular in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and France. It is a big, strong cat, similar to the Maine Coon breed, with long legs, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spælsau
__NOTOC__ The Spælsau (Old Norwegian Short Tail Landrace, Gamalnorsk spæl Norwegian) is a breed of sheep from Norway. Many consider Spælsau to be the original breed of sheep in Norway, and it is one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep breeds. It is well adapted to the climate and was a domestic animal from the Iron Age. The spælsau stock is about 22% of the sheep in Norway. In 1912, to prevent extinction of the breed, two breeding stations were established. Icelandic sheep were crossed through semen imported in the 1960s and 1970s. Finnsheep and Faroe Island sheep were also used in the breeding program. This breed is raised primarily for meat. Characteristics Originally it is compact and lightly built and does not need much concentrated food. The meat has relatively little fat. The Spælsau gives rich milk, has a strong flock instinct, and manages well outdoors most of the year. But it is vulnerable to eye disease caused by eating the plant Bog Asphodel (''Narthec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jærhøns
The Jærhøns or Norske Jærhøns is the only indigenous breed of domestic chicken in Norway. It is named for the traditional district of Jæren in the county of Rogaland. History The Jærhøns was the principal chicken breed of Norway until imports of foreign breeds began in the nineteenth century. The Jærhøns was selectively bred at the state-controlled breeding station at Bryne in Jæren from its establishment in 1916 until it closed in 1973. Breeding stock was then transferred to the state agricultural college at Hvam, Nes. Following work done in the first half of the twentieth century, the Jærhøns is auto-sexing Auto-sexing breeds of poultry are those in which the sex of newly-hatched chicks can be determined from the colour and markings of the down. Some breeds of chicken, of goose and of domestic pigeon have this characteristic. The idea of such a b .... The Jærhøns was listed as a "conservation-worthy national breed" by the Norwegian Forest and Landscape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icelandic Cattle
Icelandic cattle ( is, íslenskur nautgripur ) are a breed of cattle native to Iceland. Cattle were first brought to the island during the Settlement of Iceland a thousand years ago. Icelandic cows are an especially colorful breed with a wide variety of colours and markings. Icelandic cattle have been genetically isolated for centuries, but are most closely related to a breed in Norway called Blacksided Troender- and Nordland Cattle. No cattle are permitted to be imported into Iceland, so they have been protected by strict disease-prevention measures. The Icelandic cow is a dairy breed with a small body size. About 95% are naturally polled, but the rest are horned. An average cow can produce about of milk per year, with the best animals producing . They are housed for about eight months of the year and fed largely on hay, supplemented with cereals. They are grazed outside in the summer, and to prolong the growing season, cabbage, turnips, barley, and oats are grown for forage. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
