I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on what to improve with my doe. I would like to improve my stock and eventually produce showable Nigerians, I don't have any pictures of her udder because she is a first timer. Thank you for the help!
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NDGA used to do a "virtual show" on their website eight or ten years ago, and I loved that. They'd have photos from the front, rear, and side of each goat, and then a judge would go over the strengths and weaknesses of each one and rank them. It was very educational! They still do that in Dairy Goat Journal, but I'm not aware of any websites that do it now.
Are you attending the big show in Loveland Colorado this year?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Well put Deborah, and thanks. You know I really wish there were virtual shows for us newbies. As far as I have found there are not. Please correct me if I am wrong. Even though I know there is no real comparison between virtual and the real thing, I still feel that those of us who have no one living close enough to us to be mentors to us with our chosen breeds would stand to learn a great deal from something like that. Maybe someone can come up with a way for us to at least submit photos for evaluation with someone who knows enough to help us learn what we are looking for. Videos might be useful. I personally would love help in picking out which kids to keep when I finally get them!
It is really hard to give any meaningful feedback from photos, especially when a goat is unclipped. We have had a lot of surprises ourselves when clipping our goats.
If you want to show, it's a good idea to attend shows and listen to all of the judge's comments and ask tons of questions from the people there.
I know people talk about about breeding to a specific buck to improve a particular trait, but my strategy was to simply buy the best buck I could afford, that came from a dam that had everything I wanted. In my case, that mean high milk production, a lovely udder that was easy to milk, and a classification score of at least VG. But others will have other things that are more important. Even if a goat has nothing that needs to be corrected, you still want to breed to the very best that you can afford so that you'll continue to have those great traits that you love about your goat.