Back in the early 90's a exotic animal importer called Jurgan Shultz had a vision to bring some of the finest goats in South Africa to the USA. To enable this dream he got together with 4 wealthy backers, and spent 6 months and 22,000 miles finding 400 of the VERY BEST quality goats available, and many that were not available, he got anyway.
400 is not a lot by SA standards, and could be done in an afternoon, if you were not looking for the very best, but the fact that it took 6 months, tells anyone Jurgan was VERY picky what he bought.
The animals were corraled at the Jordaan, and were tagged with a YELLOW TRIANGLE tag that said CODI/PCI, the CODI means CAMELIDS of DELAWARE INC this is Jurgans import company name, the PCI means PET CENTER INTERNATIONAL which is in Ca, & which I assume did the paperwork.
The animals were also tattoed in the flank for safety. The original live imports carry an import # TX630/***, the animals that were born in quaranteen carry the # TX631/***, Jurgan Shultz registered as a SA breeder (I assume as a formality) the herd prefix 994, and the animals will also have this plus there # on the registration papers EI...994/***.
The animals survived horrible conditions in the hot humid quaranteen pens, some died and some were born and some got bred, this vast herd then moved to Jurgans Ranch in Lampases TX, where they lived, and were raised, then in 1996 Jurgan decided to disperse this great herd, and people were eager to get them, as what had been imported thus far from SA, was far less quality than these so now called CODI goats.
There may only be a handful of those originals now alive, and they are around 10-12 years old, and the first born are about 8 & 9 years old, but what an impact they have made on the Boer Goat Industry, they are exceptional producing animals, many of our most famous winners are born from CODI foundation goats, PIPELINE'S mother was a CODI, and of course KAPTEIN, FRANCES was a CODI, LYLE'S mother was a CODI, BULLDOG'S mother was a CODI, RENIOR was a CODI, all national or reserve Champions, 2001 JR National Champion was out of a CODI bred doe, some of Ryals most well-known bucks have a CODI foundation/ POWELL/HOLMANS great doe BIG MAMA was a CODI, the list is endless.............not any others can say this.
Jurgan Shultz realized his vision and brought the best of SA to the USA, and started this Boer Goat revolution, just one man with a dream, to bring us the best, and I for one am very glad he did, the animals are tremendous to lay a great foundation to any breeding program.
It is very important that these CODI numbers are preserved on the registration papers, and I urge everyone with CODI animals to make sure they are not ommited, which is what the ABGA is tending to do, it will be very hard to recognize CODI bloodline animals without these numbers on the papers, just an ABGA number means absolutely nothing to a CODI breeder, we want that 994 number on the papers to know where that animal was bred from, so we can preserve this GREAT foundation blood for the future. (Reprinted by Special Permission) |
