Website Information
Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand
Origin and Operation
• The New Zealand Rare Breeds Website originated from an idea by » Michael Willis, backed by the National Committee of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand, in 2001. The Canterbury Section of the Society was given a mandate to compile the website and the actual compilation was undertaken by Michael Trotter and Beverley McCulloch. The text used was written/edited by Beverley, and the website itself was developed by Michael – it first went on line in April 2002. (The » original Home Page, which is no longer used, has been preserved as a bit of the site's history.) » Michael and Beverley, as Webmasters, maintained, monitored and updated the Website on behalf of the Society until Beverley's death in March 2006, after which Michael continued this work on his own. General enquiries on listed breeds are dealt with by » Sitereh Schouten. All work on the website – including photography and breed research – has been undertaken voluntarily at no cost to the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand, though costs are involved in domain name registration and web hosting.
Disclaimer
• The compilers of this website hope the viewers find the contents interesting and informative, but they are for general information purposes only and should not be taken to constitute advice on the breeding, management, care or upkeep of rare or minority breeds of livestock.
• While every effort has been taken to ensure that the information presented is accurate and up-to-date, the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand Incorporated accepts no responsibility for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions or misleading statements. The information contained on the website may include opinions or views which, unless expressly stated otherwise, are not those of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand Incorporated.
New Zealand
• It is apparent that some (hopefully very few) of the Website's viewers are somewhat confused about what and where "New Zealand" is – some people clearly thinking that it is part of a major northern hemisphere continent. So a page has been added to help overcome this problem. If you have any doubts, go to » New Zealand – What and Where.
Contact Details
• Any enquiries or comments about this Website can be sent to the » Webmaster. For other enquiries about rare breeds or the Rare Breeds Conservation Society, see the » Contact page.
Copyright and Copying
© All New Zealand Rare Breeds Website material is Copyright – in the first instance to the writer or photographer concerned, secondly to the compilers of this website and thirdly to the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand Incorporated. All Rights Reserved World Wide. Single copies of pages may, however, be printed out for personal, non-commercial, use. Depending on the browser and printer used, pages of the Rare Breeds Website may print better if the printer setting is reduced to 85%.
Website Definitions
• See the » Website Definitions page for explanations of terms used here.
Viewing
• Although the New Zealand Rare Breeds Website is designed to work satisfactorily on a wide range of browsers, the compilers have not quite gone to the extremes advocated by the » Viewable With Any Browser campaign (which is supported in principle), but have tried to effect a balance between presentation quality and viewability.
• The Website was originally written in HTML with some CSS (see » Website Definitions for explanations of these terms). By the end of 2003, all pages of the website proper had been converted to XHTML and checked extensively on Opera, Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers – each of which interprets even carefully-written HTML / XHTML differently (for instance, Internet Explorer does not render border colours well). During 2004 checking was also carried out on Firefox and Mozilla browsers.
• Viewing is best carried out with a monitor having a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Spot checks have been carried out with monitor resolutions ranging from 640 x 480 to 1600 x 1200 pixels. (Anything less than 800 x 600 is not recommended on desktop or laptop browsers.)
• Early versions of some browsers will not show pages quite the way they were designed (apologies to users of versions of Netscape 4 or earlier and Explorer 3 or earlier), but statistical reports of Website viewing indicate that only a very small percentage of the viewers use these – and several brands of modern browsers (e.g. » Opera or » Firefox) are readily available at no cost. Nevertheless, please let the » Webmaster know if you experience difficulty in viewing the Website with any browser or monitor resolution. They would particularly like to hear from viewers using browsers other than those mentioned above.
• In 2005, with the increasing use of high resolution monitors (1400 x 1050 pixels and above), a start was reluctantly made to modify the website to better suit these – reluctantly, because what is best for high resolution monitors is often not satisfactory for convenient viewing at the lower end of the scale, expecially on old browsers. (And some Mackintosh browsers may now show the text larger than intended.) While text may be clearer at high resolution, both graphics and text are often unnecessarily small, and adjusting for size may lead to a reduction in clarity. There is little consistency on how different browsers display pages on high resolution screens.
• To alter the size of the text – you might want to decrease it for low-resolution monitors or to increase it for easier reading on high resolution monitors – click "View" on the menu bar near the top of the screen and adjust Zoom, Text Size or Font, depending on the browser in use. (Unfortunately, this doesn't work on most versions of Internet Explorer.)
• The W3C XHTML emblem at the bottom of Rare Breeds Website pages indicates that they have been validated by the » World Wide Web Consortium's markup validation service. From late 2004 all main pages of the Website have also had the CSS component validated by the Consortium's services.
• In designing this Website, it has been the Webmaster's policy to avoid scripts, frames, and gimmicks that require special software, both for visitor convenience and to avoid excessive downloading times (or worse! – some browsers simply can't cope with them). However, in an attempt to reduce the amount of automatically generated spam, some script sequences were added to five interactive pages in 2009.
• Also to reduce smamming, all e-mail addresses that occur on the Rare Breeds website proper contain hidden code to prevent them being copied by 'bots.'
• If you are making a repeat visit to a page of New Zealand Rare Breeds, it is strongly suggested that you click on your "Refresh" or "Reload" button (usually near the top of the browser screen) while on line – especially for pages such as "WEBMART", "DIRECTORY" or "NEWS" that are regularly updated – as your computer may have cached an earlier (and now outdated) version of the page you wish to view. See Viewing Hints for details.
• Where there is no caption immediately beneath an illustration, moving the Mouse pointer onto it will produce a brief description (plus acknowledgement of the photographer where relevant).
Navigation and Links
• Links to other pages in the New Zealand Rare Breed Website are generally (though not always) in blue, are preceded by double chevrons ( »), and the background becomes white when the Mouse pointer is placed on them. In some places unmarked graphics and text act as secondary links. On most browsers, however, links can easily be identified by the Mouse pointer turning into a small hand as it passes over them.
• All viewable pages of the Website have a 'Navigation Bar' – a row of 'shortcut' links to other sections of the Website – along the top, and almost all have a link to the Home Page at the bottom.
• A » Site Map, listing all the main pages of this Website, is accessible from the Home Page or by clicking on the Website's emblem of two Mohaka feral rams where it appears on first and second level pages.
• On most browsers pressing the 'End' key will take you to the bottom of the page and the 'Home' key will return you to the top.
• Links to other relevant breed society or group websites can be found on the » Links page and also where appropriate at the bottom of breed description pages. (To return to Rare Breeds from an external site you should be able to use their link to get back or click on the "back" arrow – usually near the top left corner of the browser screen.) Links to Associates' Pages – Information and Stud – occur in entries in the Breeders Directory as well as on the Links page. All internal links can also be found on the Sitemap.
• Links to external websites are provided for viewer convenience only and do not constitute endorsement of material on those sites, nor of any organisations, products or services referred to.
• Links from Breeders Directory listings to other websites are included only when a return link is given to New Zealand Rare Breeds. In such cases, the link may also be added to the Links page. On Webmart, links are given only to Associates and other internal pages.
Associates' Webpages
• Individual breeders and Breed Societies can have their own Webpages (or small Websites) on the Rare Breeds Website – so long as they have something to do with livestock that has rare or minority status in New Zealand. (See » Definition of Associates.) Setting up (design, text editing, photo enhancement, compilation, appropriate links, validation, putting on line) and running costs of a single Webpage for the first year are generally about $100 for members of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society and $150 for non-members. Running costs for subsequent years are $25 and $37.50 respectively – all costs in New Zealand dollars. (In both cases running costs include maintenance, monitoring, minor alterations and updates.) Extra pages are half these rates. (All money goes to the Rare Breeds Conservation Society – the work on the website is done on a voluntary basis.) See » Associates for examples of those already on line, and contact the » Webmaster for details – without obligation.
Google Search
• A Google search facility is available on the Home Page (and some other pages) to search for any key word or phrase on the Website. This is unlikely to find the latest listings on Webmart which is updated fairly frequently. To search for a word on Webmart, use the browser's "Find" facility (usually activated by pressing Ctrl+F). The Google search facility may be used in a normal manner by clicking the "World Wide" bullet beneath it.
Breed Information
• The compilers of the Website would be happy to receive further information on, and photographs of, rare and minority breeds in New Zealand. If you can assist please contact the » Webmaster.
Webmart and Directory Listings
• Because of the increasing work involved, as from July 2005, overseas listings for Webmart and Breeders Directory cannot be accepted except from Members and Associates of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand. And from October 2005, Webmart advertisements from those who are not Members or Associates are restricted to one per calendar month.
Website Statistics
• Rare Breeds Website statistics are available at » Website Statistics.
Acknowledgements
• The compilation of this Website would not have been possible without the assistance of a number of people who supplied photographs, information and ideas, and thanks are recorded especially to:
Iain Aitken, Jacky Anderson, Murray Anderson, Angie Barker, Helen Boyd-Alspach, June Brown, Katy Brown, Janette Buckingham, John Cleland, Jean Donaldson, Angela Dunn, Pat Emmett, Gavin Falloon, Bryan and Rosie Fowler, Ross Fraser, Tim Gow, Hall Family, Alex Henderson, Fiona Hopper, Samantha Hoy, Dania Jensen, Pam Johnson, Catreona Kelley, Lorne Kuehn, Grant Latimer, Peter le Bas, Lesley Lomas (NZDGBA), Carolyn McCree, Beverley McCulloch, Helen Mackenzie, Ivan McIsaac, Jeanette McIsaac, Dave and Judi Matheson, Midas Dairy Goats, Bruce and Jayne Moffatt, Russell and Carolyn Nelson, Karen Nicoll, Margaret Prattley, Betty and Walter Rowe, Sitereh Schouten, Gail Simons, Michael Trotter, David Tuart, Renard Turner, Samantha, Nick and Jill van der Sande, Daniel Wheeler, Michael Willis.
• Many of these people supplied photographs, and initially photographers were not acknowledged beneath the on-screen image. Since the site was rewritten in XHTML at the end of 2003 (see above), we now give credit to the photographers beneath their photographs, and from 2004 onwards they are no longer included in the above list. One exception to this is the Website's emblem which now appears on the Home Page and elsewhere. This computer graphic is based on a photograph of Mohaka rams taken by David Tuart, and we wish to make special acknowledgement of David's great photography and to thank him for allowing us to use this image. (David's unmodified photograph can be seen on the Website's original Home Page.)
