YORKTON, Sask. – Lorraine Keeping pulled double duty at the triple dairy goat show held here during the summer fair.
The Christopher Lake, Sask., resident was both showing and judging goats during the event.
“It definitely fills up the day,” she said at the conclusion of the dairy buck and junior doe shows that opened the Caprine Extreme.
In a triple show, participants exhibit their animals before three different judges but one at a time. The other judges don’t generally watch before taking their turns.
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However, Keeping followed Ian Clark and Barb Clark, both of Shellbrook, Sask., in the judging rotation and showed her goats in the first two shows.
“Obviously I see how the judges place the entries,” she said. “But we’ve all been senior judges for a lot of years. We don’t let it influence us.”
Animals change during a long day of showing.
“The way they carry themselves in the ring changes considerably,” she said.
The top line along the back of a goat, which indicates how a goat is feeling, will dip if the animal isn’t feeling well.
Judges use a four-part scorecard to evaluate the entries. It is similar to the one used for dairy cattle and includes general appearance, body capacity, mammary capacity and dairy character.
Some of these traits are not as well developed in kids, but Keeping said a strong animal is obvious even at a young age.
Keeping has judged for 20 years while raising various breeds of dairy goats for breeding stock.
She has 15 does and said most of her kids are sold into Ontario by March. A few go to Quebec and New Brunswick.
The dairy goat industry is much stronger in the east.
“The milking industry is kind of at sixes and sevens here in the Prairies because we have such huge distances to transport,” Keeping said.
In Ontario, for example, there are 31,000 goats being milked, most of them closer to large centres with the ethnic population to support the industry.
“Goat cheese is tremendously popular,” she said.
People can process goat milk on their farms as long as public health inspection is carried out.
This year, the show featured the first ever futurity event, which was won by Newton Hill Taahira, a junior Nubian kid owned by Jerry Sanduliak of Elkhorn, Man.
Breed shows included Nubian, LaMancha, Alpine and Recorded Grade.
