How to Care for Show Goats

Goats make for wonderful pets and offer their owners great personality and affection. Goat owners interested in showing goats should look into purchasing a breed well known in goat showing circles, such as a pygmy goat or cashmere goat. Keeping your goat in excellent health, maintaining its coat and training it to be led are three important parts of raising a goat for showing. Owners who address these three elements can start making room on their shelves for showing trophies.

Things You'll Need

  • Goat grain feed mixture
  • 1 cup measure
  • Hay
  • Clean straw
  • Baking soda
  • Trace mineral salt
  • Deworming medication
  • Large pen with climbing structures
  • Goat halter
  • Lead
  • Treats
  • Goat grooming brushes
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Instructions

  1. How to Care for Show Goats

    • 1

      Feed your goat an appropriate mixture of grains for its breed twice daily (1 cup in the morning, 1 cup in the evening) and ensure it has fresh hay available throughout the day. Keep clean, fresh water available for your goat as well. Check your goat's grazing area for any plants that could be poisonous to them and remove any immediately. Good nutrition is linked with your goat's appearance, which will be judged at shows.

    • 2

      Have your goat immunized as a kid and update any vaccines as your vet recommends to keep the goat healthy. Make available at all times baking soda, which helps aid digestion, and trace mineral salt, which provides minerals the goat would otherwise be lacking. Deworm goats four times a year and alternate the dewormers you use to avoid resistance. Healthier goats do better in shows.

    • 3

      Give your goat ample space to climb and play for exercise. Place stumps, large rocks and other structures good for climbing in the middle of the goat's pen. Avoid raising only one goat, as goats are happiest when they have a companion, and stress or loneliness can affect the health of the goat, which will in turn affect its ability to show.

    • 4

      Show goats should be medium to large for their age, with no injuries, and should have its horn and ear tips intact. Goats with calm dispositions and good coats will be the easiest to show. Train any goats you intend to show to be led from a young age. All shows will require your goat to be halter broken, so start this process early. Reward the goat for every positive improvement it makes with treats while training it to wear a halter. Train male goats to be calm while having their testicles squeezed as this will occur during judging. Practice going through the motions of showing with your goat.

    • 5

      A few days before the show groom your goat. Do not wash a goat, as goats do not enjoy this and it will make their coat straighten, which is not attractive to judges. Remove any burrs in the coat by pulling them free, not by cutting them. On show day, bed the goat in straw, not shavings, as shavings easily become entangled in goat hair.