Interpreting common terms for desirable characteristics

I've included this picture from Raising Goats Naturally to make it a little easier to answer your questions, although I'm really not an authority on showing. We only showed for a few years, and most of the terms you mentioned are used primarily in the show ring.

This doe is nicely blended, meaning that one part of her body flows well into the next part. One place where you often see poor blending is around the shoulders because the shoulders stick out on some goats. You can actually see the shoulder blades.

This doe also has good depth of barrel, meaning that her heart girth and body are pretty deep from spine to lower belly. It is not uncommon for a yearling to have minimal depth of barrel because they're still just young.

You cannot see dairy skin in the picture, which is why judges feel the goats and pull on their skin. It should be pretty thin. This translates to thinner skin on the udder, which makes it easier to milk. When they talk about texture, they're talking about udder texture, and it should be nice and soft. It should not feel meaty. Meaty udders drive me crazy because you can never tell when the doe is completely milked out based upon how the udder feels. It always feels like there is a lot of milk in there.

You'd need to see a rear or front view of the goat to know what kind of spring of rib she has. The heart girth should look fairly wide. If the ribs just go straight down, rather than rounding out, that's not good.

Dairyness is an overall character thing. It involves the head, the angularity, etc. A ND is a dairy goat and should look more triangular from the side. A pygmy or a boer is more rectangular and meaty looking. A pygmy looks like a beer barrel on legs. That is NOT dairy.

Hope this helps!

Replies

Cherissa Woudenberg March 20, 2015 at 9:09pm

Oh thanks so much Deborah!!! This has been bugging me ever since I got my first 2 does 2 years ago.

So now I shall be less confused by these terms.

Thanks :D and yes this is very helpful!
Deborah Niemann-Boehle March 20, 2015 at 5:07pm

I've included this picture from Raising Goats Naturally to make it a little easier to answer your questions, although I'm really not an authority on showing. We only showed for a few years, and most of the terms you mentioned are used primarily in the show ring.

This doe is nicely blended, meaning that one part of her body flows well into the next part. One place where you often see poor blending is around the shoulders because the shoulders stick out on some goats. You can actually see the shoulder blades.

This doe also has good depth of barrel, meaning that her heart girth and body are pretty deep from spine to lower belly. It is not uncommon for a yearling to have minimal depth of barrel because they're still just young.

You cannot see dairy skin in the picture, which is why judges feel the goats and pull on their skin. It should be pretty thin. This translates to thinner skin on the udder, which makes it easier to milk. When they talk about texture, they're talking about udder texture, and it should be nice and soft. It should not feel meaty. Meaty udders drive me crazy because you can never tell when the doe is completely milked out based upon how the udder feels. It always feels like there is a lot of milk in there.

You'd need to see a rear or front view of the goat to know what kind of spring of rib she has. The heart girth should look fairly wide. If the ribs just go straight down, rather than rounding out, that's not good.

Dairyness is an overall character thing. It involves the head, the angularity, etc. A ND is a dairy goat and should look more triangular from the side. A pygmy or a boer is more rectangular and meaty looking. A pygmy looks like a beer barrel on legs. That is NOT dairy.

Hope this helps!

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