SBC/GW's Journal- Spring shows DONE! & Update

[Donna R. Raybon]

Woooohoooooo, what a loverly bunch of coconuts!!! Everywhere you look, pretty, pretty!
Black goats have a special place in my heart, too. But they are hard to photograph. I never could do them justice. If I could keep a second breed, it probably would be Lamancha. Good luck at show, travel safe! Careful of the heat stress for two legged as well as four. I remember one show it was so hot hauling I bought bagged ice and mixed with straw in truck bed. Friend who showed pigs shared that trick. Cost me $20 in ice, but my girls traveled cool!

 

[Southern by choice]

Woooohoooooo, what a loverly bunch of coconuts!!! Everywhere you look, pretty, pretty!
Black goats have a special place in my heart, too. But they are hard to photograph. I never could do them justice. If I could keep a second breed, it probably would be Lamancha. Good luck at show, travel safe! Careful of the heat stress for two legged as well as four. I remember one show it was so hot hauling I bought bagged ice and mixed with straw in truck bed. Friend who showed pigs shared that trick. Cost me $20 in ice, but my girls traveled cool!

Thank you. That is a great tip about the ice cubes!
Right now we don't have a trailer. Since most of the human kids are grown and gone we now use our 15 passenger van for a goat hauler.
The plus side is they are always in a comfortable temp. A/C and heat. The down side... we are always limited on how many goats we can take to a show.
Basically we pick and choose who gets to go "this time". Having so many breeds, honestly, is a challenge.
We usually end up taking a few lamanchas, 1 recorded grade sr, a few Nigerians... maybe a Nubian. Having Sr lamanchas means we can take 2-3 and then the rest have to be a few jrs. Jr Nigerians especially real young ones take less room. This year we have only taken 1 Sr Nigerian to the shows.
For the Jrs we tend to take 2 Nigerians. Once they have their restricted leg we swap them for another 2 and so on til they all have a leg.
Same with Lamanchas/Grades.
I dream of a trailer and a big ole' truck to pull them with so we can take everyone on the show string at once. I can dream.

I agree, black goats are very difficult to photograph. The color really has become one of my favorites. I really love the sundgau look on lamanchas.
The two new red lamanchas are American - they have Nubian in them.

 

[HomeOnTheRange]

First think I do when looking at a buck is to check his teats.

This goes for boar pigs/piglets as well!

Great looking goats all around. Hope your show goes well.

 

[Southern by choice]

So I wanted to share about my baby boy George.
I love George.
George is a sweetie pie.
George is a buck.
George is also a showboat.
George loves himself too.
Can goats be narcissistic?

George went to a show as a baby just because they needed the numbers. We aren't big on showing bucks.
Ever since he went he now loves to be on a lead but oddly enough he seems to like to "show" himself off... lead or no lead.
It is really strange... really strange.

Last week we had George with some other baby bucks/wethers running around with us in the yard. We also have the camera. George walks over he stops 10 ft in front of me. He stands there all pretty, I think hmm he is probably going to pee. NOPE.
So I snap a few shots and he keeps standing. I said, "George, what are you doing?" He proceeds to stretch out his neck and stands there. I turn the camera away and am taking pics of the Nigerian bucklings and it appears George gets jealous. GW starts laughing because now he comes straight up to me in my face as if to say, "helloooooo". He then walks away and faces the opposite direction and does the same thing. I suppose he was trying to "show off" his left side and right side. I thought it was too funny and weird to not share. I didn't have the heart to tell him his front legs were not placed correctly. I won't post all the pics in the series... but it was too funny.

Tonight I am out on the porch... I look over and George is standing on his bench, looking out at the does (some are in heat). Two nigerian babies are laying down on the bench below him. He looked so handsome and I love him so much... I yell over, "GEORGE! I LOVE YOU!" George picks his head up and looks over to find me. And then... there it is... he shifts and starts setting himself up... head high, legs positioned. I of course laughed and told him how handsome he was.

Strangest thing I have ever seen with a goat.

I do really like this boy. He is the style I LIKE. I prefer the older style lamancha. Before they basically became Alpines with no ears.
I have some pics as he has been growing... I like to see the progression. I may give him a doe to breed this year. We retained his sister . She isn't as "dairy" as they like them in the ring but I know what she will turn out like so I am ok that she is a bit fleshy right now and again I prefer the shorter powerful type.

Inserting as thumbnails...
9-10 weeks


3.5 months


5.5 months


6 months from last week when he was doing all the posing! So weird!
This is where he was jealous and came up then walked away and made sure I got his "other side"... I really love this guy.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Ya might be able to exploit that and get him some exposure in commercials and ads....ya just never know....

 

[farmerjan]

I am no expert on goats. BUT, I have seen in the cattle that they want the "dairy" animals to be "TOO DAIRY" . It has pretty much destroyed the Guernsey breed by trying to make them something they are not. Even the Brown Swiss are becoming more "dairy" and they are supposed to be a big breed. Rugged big boned and all that from the "mountain climbing" of the swiss alps; and they are becoming more and more refined. If you look back on the cattle breeds over the years you can see where the tends shifted and what they have bred for. In the 50's the black angus and herefords were short stocky bodies on little short legs. Then the angus got big and tall and were nearly as big as chianina's in the 90's. Now they are going back down in size, but they have lost that "chunk" look of the body and gotten sleeker. They don't have the rump or muscling that they used to have. Not saying that we need to have the "double muscle look" that is popular in many european breeds; but we have been breeding for this "low fat streamlined look". And of course, all "black cattle" qualify for the black angus certification so everything has black color now......

 

[Southern by choice]

@farmerjan we have a lot of cattle folk around us and we have heard so many stories about how "it use to be".
Sometimes I fear all this "improvement" is only for the human eye and not always for the animal.
Showing the goats allows us to see so many really beautiful goats. Within those beautiful goats there really are differences in body style.
I sometimes think the universal scorecard has hurt the individual breeds to some degree. I love the distinct difference of the breeds and now it seems that if you cropped the head out of the picture you wouldn't be able to tell one breed from another.

@CntryBoy777 hmmmm now that's a thought Wonder what it's like for goats to have to pay for themselves

 

[animalmom]

What???? Goats pay for themselves? Have you lost your ever loving mind?

 

[Southern by choice]

 

[farmerjan]

I agree with the "universal" thing. Luckily they have not tried to make our show breeds of chickens all alike. And the Standard of Perfection specifically states how each breed should look. There are still some changes over the years, in some breeds, but not like in the cattle and I guess, the goat breeds.
There are a few beef breeders that have been looking for, and going back to, the older genetics to try to get some of the "real breed characteristics" back in the cattle. Genetics have become so refined that they are using all this "genomics" which means that " IN THEORY" this bull A bred to this cow B will produce superior off spring. They are using that to the detriment of losing some of the other good characteristics...like longevity.... Supposedly they can determine which bulls will throw heifers that will be more likely to have high cell counts (mastitis tendencies) and such. They are flushing virgin heifers at 12-14 months, to young bulls that are out of virgin heifers....No milk records for the dam of the bull and sometimes not the granddam.... but his "genomics" say he will sire super duper high producing heifers..... Guess it doesn't make a big difference because the average time a cow is in a productive dairy farm is less than 2 lactations.
And in the catalogs you haven't been able to see a picture of the bull you are buying semen from for years. But in the experts opinion he is superior...