What is Showmanship? A lot of factors go into judging showmanship. Is your goat appropriately fit for the type of showmanship that you are entering? For Dairy Goats have you done a fully body clip and are your goats hooves scrubbed clean and properly trimmed? Are the inside of the nose and ears clean and have you cleaned underneath the tail. For other type goats, if you don�t need to do a full body clip is the area around the hooves trimmed? Are the inside of the ears trimmed, have you left a �paintbrush� on the end of the tail? Are all the parts clean?
Have you been brushing your goats every day and working with them? Can you lead your goat into the ring without you dragging it or it dragging you? Are you appropriately dressed? If showing Dairy Goats do you have your whites? If showing Meat do you have a white shirt and dark pants, if showing pack do you have on what you would when going on a hike and for companions do you have on nice neat clothes that you would be handling your goats in? Appropriate shoes are required under no circumstance should you be wearing flip flops or sandals not only on show day but for the whole week of fair. Closed toe shoes are to be worn.
Do you know your goat parts and the goat industry? You will be asked questions about your animal and what its purpose is. Do you know how to properly move in and out of line and when to move to let someone else in line? Do you know what side of the goat you are suppose to be on according to the judge is? Do you know how to set your goat up to the best advantage showing the best points off to the judge? Can you recognize the faults of your goat and what you can do to improve them?Can you take someone else�s animal and do the same thing?
If you answered yes to all these questions then you are on way to being a great goat showman. If you answered no then you have some more research to do to get you and your goat ready.
Remember a judge is going to place an exhibitor who is very well prepared over someone who just comes into the ring and hasn�t prepared at all. There are exhibitors that work with their animals all year round, not just at fair time.
Remember to smile and look like you really want to be in the ring on show day and that you know what you are doing. This is your time to show off yourself and your goat.
BREED CLASSES
Breed classes are based on the conformation of the goat according to its breed type. Example for Dairy goat there are 4 parts that make up the conformation of the dairy goat. Each part along with sub parts are given points. There are points given to Senior doe, Junior doe and the buck The 4 parts are General Appearance, Dairy Character, Body Capacity, and the Mammary system. Look at the Dairy Goat Score card for more information. This score card is based on the ideal dairy goat so when your goat is being judged in a breed class it is being judged against the ideal goat using this scorecard then the goat that is in the ring that comes closest to this should be placed first and so on. Goats that are entered into breed classes are not so much judged against each other but compared to what your goat should look like
Use this link to get to the A.D.G.A Score card. http://adga.org/Scorecard.htm
Link to interpreting the A.D.G.A evalaution of defects
Each breed type, Dairy, Meat, Pack, companion each have conformation classes.
