Quit Mansplaining Raising Dairy Goats To Me: A Blog

I forgot, in the telling of my State Fair experience, one thing that made me laugh. The first day of the show ran incredibly long. I think everybody was worn out and over it hours before it ended. At one point, towards the end of the show, I looked up and saw one of my favorite exhibitors walking into the barn holding a beer garden beer. I cracked up. I have no idea what the barn rules are, or what etiquette dictates, but I have to say, a round of beer garden beers might’ve added some levity to an awfully tedious day. 

After tucking our kids in that night, we got back to our hotel just as the in-hotel restaurant was closing. Yes, hotel…this was our vacation. I know the pros stay on the fairgrounds, but that requires a level of commitment I don’t have. We didn’t get beer garden beers, but I did get a bar-garita at a little hole in the wall we found open at that hour. And I got Starbucks the next day.

The second day ran so long we bailed and went home before our kid classes ever started. But like I said before, they didn’t pull enough Grades to sanction anyway. No harm, no foul.

This is the part where I want to say, I did show goats. For about six years, from the ages 14 to 19, we showed at the tricounty fair, the State Fair, the Billings fair, the Kalispell fair. Traveled. Stayed in a camper. Lived and breathed it. Won Herdsmanship trophies and Showmanship trophies, Best of Breeds, Best Udders, Best In Show. I know. I know what you chase. I know.

Somewhere, I have an original, autographed copy of Harvey Considine’s Dairy Goat Judging Techniques. And at one time I had it memorized. (Go check out the value of that book on Amazon Marketprice, lol.) (I hope I have it somewhere; I sold used books for a summer after college, made $4,000 selling the contents of my high school bookshelves…I sure hope I didn’t sell that book.)

I went to a National Show in Gillette, Wyo., just to watch the LaMancha classes. Humble brag, I had a private pilot fly me to the show that morning, and fly me home that night. I went to a National Convention in Spokane, Wash., and took a class on a.i.ing dairy goats when I was 16 years old (and then successfully a.i.ed goats…what I wouldn’t give to have some of that exact frozen semen back again). I watched the Spotlight Sale. I remember the glitter on the goats. They put glitter on the goats!

Anyway. I know you mean well when you tell me what I could do better. Or what I should do instead. But I don’t want that. I just want the dopamine hit I get when I put my hands on a bred doe’s belly and feel kids moving. I want to relive the satisfaction I feel every time I see live and healthy kids nurse for the first time. (Yes, nurse. I’ve dam-raised, and I’ve pulled kids at birth, and I’m comfortable with both, and I’m aware of the arguments for and against either. I do the thing that works for the doe in front of me given the time I have available. There is not a right or wrong.) I want to keep being delighted when there are wattles. I want to see those 30-year-old names up close on my pedigrees, even though they aren’t trendy and they won’t place in the ring. (I do have 40-year-old frozen semen in a tank. Someday, I’ll use it.) And I want you to quit telling me how I’m getting it wrong.