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.

Burnie Show

Today was the first of the Agricultural shows of the show season. We left this morning at about 7am and drove for about 4 hours from one end of Tasmania to the other, just my youngest daughter, my lovely wife and I.

We wanted to see the goat judging but we got there too late for that. Still, the goats that were there were lovely.

The show was certainly smaller than the Royal Hobart or Royal Sydney shows that I am more familiar with, but it was very enjoyable. The only thing that I felt was missing from the show was sheep, we didn’t see any sheep!

My youngest had her first go at driving the dodgem-cars and we had a bit of fun driving around hitting each other.

Next weekend is the Launceston show, we should have a nice time … it is about an hour less drive in each direction too, so I shouldn’t be so tired after the drive.

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.

First Federal Meeting for me

Well, this weekend is the annual federal meeting of the Dairy Goat Society of Australia and it’s on here in Tasmania. It’ll be my first go at attending one of these meetings.

Now, I attend meetings and workshops all week for work, and I can’t say that I particularly relish the thought of spending more time in meetings for leisure. However, I guess that having more involvement in the goat shows and timetables will be beneficial for me and for my goat breeding schedule (as well as giving me greater access to breeders with FAR more experience and knowledge than me).

My lovely wife and I have also signed up to participate in a Dairy Goat Judging course so that we can go along to the various agricultural shows, where goats are being shown, and lend a hand. This is another way that I think that I can improve my knowledge of goats and goat husbandry while getting in touch with even more of the goat breeding world.

Hopefully, this weekend will help me to further my knowledge and get more of an insight into the society.