Campbelltown–Branch Show

Today was the annual branch show for the Tasmanian Dairy Goat Society. My youngest and I got up early and headed off at 7am to arrive in Campbelltown at about 8:50am.

The studs that were represented at the show had some awesome goats at the show. There were two Anglo-Nubian studs, two British Alpine, a Toggenberg and a Saanen stud. The two British Alpine breeders also had Saanen, Australian Melaan and Australian Brown goats, so there was a very good representation of Australian goat breeds. This was also the first show that I attended that had bucks. There was one buck > 24 months and several bucklings.

My daughter and I were both enlisted in the showing of the goats as there were many more goats being shown than there were handlers. I was a little daunted when I was showing the buck, he is a big animal and I didn’t have a lead … just a collar to grip. Still, he was very pleasant and quite gentle. I felt very pleased with myself that the bucks owner trusted me with him.

My daughter did a lot of showing, she was the “little helper” of one of the studs, and she got to play with about six kids (one, just 3 weeks old).

I felt very proud of my daughter, she got in and helped and hardly lost her energy for it at all. At the end of the day, she was awarded a ribbon for “Best Junior Handler” she was well pleased with her ribbon. All of the breeders were very supportive of her and were very impressed with her care and attention.

I didn’t take any photos of the event, but there were many photos taken by the society, I will post some pictures when I get them.

Goat Judge Exams

Oh well, I needed 80% to pass the exam, but I only got 70%. Still, not bad since I’ve only been working with goats for a short time and I have yet to see a goat show. I’ll be going along to some of the major shows so that I can get more experience and learn more about goats and goat judging. The downfall of the newbie.

We have the Royal Hobart show coming in October and a number of other shows around the state in the coming months, so there should be plenty of time for us to get more experience at goat judging.

My goals have still been achieved, I wanted to do the Goat Judging course to learn more about breeding goats and what it is that makes a good goat. I have learned an enormous amount while studying for the exam and there is still loads that I can learn. I just have to keep my mind and ears open.

The path to a better herd of goats is still a long one and stretched out in front of me. My goat mentor took 10 years to get her herd to a level where she was consistently breeding such high quality goats.

Like anything that is worth doing, it is worth learning as thoroughly as you can and with as much energy as you can devote to it. Besides, learning with my goats is such a pleasant experience, they are lovely, active, energetic and just plain funny animals. On top of that, it is an activity that 3/4 of my family is participating in.

Now I am planning my breeding program with a view to correcting some of the faults in my goats and improving their quality. I can only do that if I know what those faults are, so … win!

Goat Judging Day

Today we did our cadet judge exams. First we had a written examination. That was a lot of questions and lots of “oh damn … I knew the answer to that”. We had to achieve a score of 80% on the written exam, so we’ll have to wait to see how we went.

Next we went on to practical judging. Most of us brought goats and some other people in the dairy goat society kindly brought some more goats along for us to give us a wide range of animals to get out hands on.

It was all about chins, chines, lines and loins, girth and thurls, hips and other goat parts. I think that, overall, we all did very well with the help and mentorship of the senior judges that ran the course.

Now all we need to do is to get some practical experience with judging in the show ring. Hopefully, we will get some good help and knowledge from actual hands on.

Goat Judging–Part II

This coming weekend is the final weekend of the goat judging course. Last weekend we covered a lot of the theoretical side of goats and judging. My youngest went very well and stayed pretty focussed for the whole time (mostly) with the aid of chocolate and biscuits. I’ve got to say, that my focus was also “enhanced” with the use of performance enhancers (chocolate, coffee and biscuits).

The three instructors were very helpful and we had loads of good discussion about goats and goat judging.

The agenda for next weekend is to finish the theory work and then sit an examination and a practical … so we are going to be bringing some goats along for the practical exam.

We will finish the course with a bar-be-queue lunch (not goat) so that should be nice. Hopefully, the three of us will do OK on the exams.

Goat Judging

This weekend will be the first weekend of the National Goat Judging program for my lovely wife, my youngest daughter and myself.

We have been working on the “project” which is about the six main dairy got breeds in Australia (Anglo-Nubian, Saanen, British Alpine, Toggenburg, Melaan and Australian Brown Goat). The breed history, description and disqualifying faults, etc.. I’ve found the project to be fairly easy and kinda fun. I’ve certainly found some excellent resources on goat breeds while doing this project.

The course is held over two weekends and covers various judgy stuff. When we are done, we will be able to start attending goat shows as assistant judges until we have enough experience and knowledge to be able to step up to the plate and do some judging ourselves.

I figure that doing this course can only help me to become a better goat breeder since it will give me access to SO many more goat breeders and goats nationally and I can get a better understanding of exactly what makes a good dairy goat. The other perk is the going along to agricultural shows as a judge.

I still need to help my youngest with her project. She knows what she needs to know to complete the project, she just doesn’t have the confidence in herself to be able to articulate it.

I am very proud of my youngest daughter and how she has been taking an interest in goats and goat showing. She loves the attention that she gets from the other goat folk and from their goats too (particularly the kids … but, meh, that’s to be expected). I am hoping that this experience will give my youngest some skills, knowledge and self-confidence that can carry her through the rest of her life. She is a peach.