Our First Goat Shows

This month has been full of wonderful first for our farm. We started the month with a new baby goat.

We are so excited to welcome Snow Coco to our herd. He is our very first Nigerian Dwarf. We got him with the intention of wethering him for Bella to show, but after a ton of consideration, we decided he was just too dang pretty to not bred! Isn't his color just gorgeous? We also drew blood on our girls for the very first time. We did that to confirm that Athena and Sonata are expecting our next set of kids. They should arrive in mid-February early-March of 2021. We love all things baby around our farm!

Speaking of babies I have not had a chance to introduce you to our new baby chicks. Back in September, we bought 17 new baby chicks to add to our flock. We purchased 2 Buff Orphingtons, 4 Barred Rock, 6 Blue Australorps, and 5 Easter Eggers. We have lost 3 for various reasons but are so excited that we were able to integrate the remaining 14 in with our existing flock this month.

We have been very busy this month but I still have not mentioned the biggest part of our month. This month Patricia showed in her very first goat show. She competed for the first time the second weekend in November. We packed some snacks and a few other things including our goat into the back of our car and headed to our first show and oh boy were we under-prepared.

First, we got there and learned that you don't actually have to weigh a dairy doe before the show, but you do have to have their birthdate which I hadn't brought with us. So after contacting our breeder to figure out exactly how old our Athena girl was our next step was getting her registration papers turned in for the show which I also managed to mess up. I was unaware that there were so many different options for entering goat shows. There are dairy breeding does and wethers, as well as market does and wethers, and then in this particular show there were just generic does and wethers which is the paper that I was given to feel out. I thought nothing of it and went on with getting ready to get Patricia in the ring. In goat shows you start with showmanship before moving into breed classes. Let's just say that our first experience with showmanship was a hot mess. Most of Patricia's time in the ring consisted of playing with her hair and shaking her hands. She was so nervous. We learned that practicing her stature in the ring is just as important as working with her goat because in showmanship the judge is considering her and her actions as part of her score. Needless to say, we came in last in showmanship. However, the most important thing we learned during this entire experience was that we need to bring plenty of things to entertain and feed the smallest munchkins. Since we didn't bring much all I can say is thank the good lord for grandmamas'. We had nothing for them to play with and for the sake of brutal honesty, I completely forgot to think about feeding them lunch. Thankfully my grandma, who came to watch Patricia, took the little ones for a small break and got them lunch so we could have a moment of peace and rest. To finish up the day we competed in our Senior Dairy Goat Doe Class. This is where they judge your goat against all the other goats of the same class and breed as yours and see who presents the best based on the standards for that specific breed. This is where the registration mistake comes into play. As the list was posted of who was competing in what class I went to go see where we competed. Patricia's name was nowhere to be seen. Luckily we knew the lady running the show so I was able to talk to her and get it straightened out so we could compete but it was stressful there for a minute. Even with all my mess-ups, Patricia took third in her very first breed competition ending the day on a good note.

The day was so much fun and I loved seeing Patricia get out of her comfort zone a little and try something new, but we were all exhausted. I don't think we did anything besides tend to our animals and then a well deserved rest time. We have since competed in two more shows and I am pleased to announce that even though we haven't won any buckles yet we are continually getting better. In this last show, Patricia took Fifth out of nine in Showmanship and received Breed Champion with Athena. Bella also competed this last show and received Second in Showmanship and Reserve Breed Champion with Embers.

There is so much involved with showing that I will make a detailed post at a later date when I have figured it out. I would like to share the packing list that I have put together. We are attempting to get at least one piece of gear needed each time we show. For this last show we invested in this footlocker from Wal-Mart that was only $16.00!

For us, it was big enough to hold all of our show related goat items, as well as my girls show clothes in their garment bag. It is not fully loaded in these pictures as we are not showing for a few weeks so we took the stuff that we used regularly out, but you can see we have our leads, show collars, water jug, clippers, brush, feed pans, goat blankets, and we also included baking soda and salt.

Here is the packing list for everything needed when we leave for the show in our tote. Hopefully, this will allow you to be more prepared than we were your first time!