Understanding Goat Conformation: From Appearance to Evaluating Defects

Episode 143
For the Love of Goats

Show goats are held to strict conformational standards, but we often overlook the fact that our own herds would benefit from those same conformational standards. Extra teats, bad legs, weak pasterns, and crooked faces may sound as though they aren’t that big of a deal outside of the show ring, but those standards have practical reasoning behind them. Ultimately, they produce a strong, sound specimen that can live a long, productive life. Don’t we all want that for our goats, even those that will never see a show ring?  

In this episode, we’re talking to Emily Thompson who has been an ADGA judge for 24 years, co-chaired several committees, served on the Linear Appraisal Committee, and raises Alpines and Toggenburgs with her family under the Kara Kahl Alpines and the Legendairy Toggenburg herd names. Emily offers clarification on breed standards in the ADGA Guidebook, the two areas that award the most points in the show ring and why, and the importance of a good mammary system.

She also covers what to look for regarding good conformation when purchasing a new goat, defects that will never go away (and some surprising ones that may), as well as some serious defects that should immediately land a goat into either the non-breeding pet or freezer category.

Transcript – Understanding Goat Conformation

00:02 Introduction 
For the love of goats. We are talking about everything goat. Whether you’re a goat owner, a breeder, or just a fan of these wonderful creatures, we’ve got you covered. And now, here’s Deborah Niemann.

Deborah00:17
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s episode. This is going to become one of my favorite episodes, I’m sure, because we are talking about something that I have a tough time explaining sometimes, mostly because we used to show back when my daughters were younger in the early 2000s but I don’t anymore, and so my knowledge of the defects and the importance of the defects and how they affect your goat are not as great as they once were.

So I was really excited at the ADGA conference last month that I listened to a session by Emily Thompson, who did this fabulous session on using age progression photography so that you could use that to make decisions about keeping does or not. And during that talk, she discussed the defects that she was seeing in some of those photos. And I thought it was just really fantastic, because this is the kind of information that I wanted to be able to give people when they’re not real clear about like, well, what does it matter that my goats udder looks like this?

So Emily has been involved in dairy goats her whole life. She’s been an ADGA judge for 24 years, co-chaired the Judge’s Training, Licensing and Assessment Committee for five years. She co-chaired the Type Committee in 2024 and she’s a member of the Linear Appraisal Committee. She raises Alpines and Toggenburgs with her family under the Kara Kahl Alpines and the Legendairy Toggenburg herd names.

Welcome to the show today, Emily.

Emily 01:48
Thanks.

Deborah 01:49
I loved your thing with photos, because I am always telling people to take pictures of their goats. Nothing–like you just cannot remember, like, what did this goat look like six months ago, or three months ago, or whatever? So maybe we’ll talk about that at another time. But I’m so excited to talk about the defects today, because I think most people are under the assumption that if they’re not going to show their goat, that the way that the goat is put together–the conformation and stuff–isn’t really that important. And that is just not true, because showing your goat is not just a beauty contest. All of that stuff is actually very practical, and so I’m excited to talk about that today.

Could you give us a little bit of an overview? Because, like, you didn’t just dream this up. And if somebody does take their goats to a show, it’s not just like, oh, what does this judge like? There is actually a guidebook, so maybe that’s a good place to start. Like, tell us about the guidebook and what’s in there.

Emily 02:46
Yeah, so the ADGA guidebook, and I have it right in front of me, so this is the 2024 version. I know there aren’t many printed versions of these anymore. I am lucky enough to get one as a judge. We need to have them and reference them when we’re judging shows. And so this guidebook is really the guide that the American Dairy Goat Association uses to evaluate animals, to promote function of animals for all of its programs. Everything about the American Dairy Goat Association and how it functions is in this guidebook.

So this association has been around since 1904, so it’s been around a very long time, and this guidebook, it really should be thought of as an evolving document. It has a lot of information in here about the various committees that ADGA has that are all composed of volunteers that really make the association thrive. It talks about various policies and procedures that ADGA has related to registering your animal, to tattooing your animal, different things like that. It has information about DHIA if you’re somebody that wants to have your animals on milk test. It talks about the different options for that and what some of those numbers mean.

If you want to get into showing, it talks about the show rules and rules that need to be followed if you’re going to have it sanctioned by the American Dairy Goat Association and use an ADGA judge. It talks about codes of ethics, which are very important, both for judges and for exhibitors. We have a standard that judges should follow when they are judging in a code of ethics they need to follow, and there is that for exhibitors and show committees as well. It then gets into kind of rules and procedures for shows. Some of the area that we’re going to talk most about today is the scorecard, which, again, has been an evolving document over time.

It has had many–gone through changes. It also talks about all of the defects, and that will talk about that–explains/lists all the defects, explains why those defects are important. And ultimately, the scorecard itself is not something that’s just used for shows. It was not originally created because of shows, and it has a very specific goal, and I wanted to pull it up for you–just read it directly for you. So let me just do that. But the goal of the Unified Scorecard–it is a one sentence goal–but it is “to aid in the selection of the type of dairy goat that can function efficiently over a long, productive lifetime.” So the scorecard is created in such a way that it awards points for all of these different structural type categories that, if in place, should lead to an animal that’s going to, again, be productive for their whole life.

Now, barring any health issues, obviously. But it says what you want to see in animals, and so if you don’t show that’s fine, but you still want to understand you’re going to buy a goat and you just want a goat for milk, or you want to buy a goat that’s built to milk. And so there are certain things that you want to look for in an animal when you’re making that purchase and you want to make an informed purchase. So that’s how the scorecard is written.

They also have a scorecard in showmanship that is really pretty exclusive to showing your animal. And then it gets into the rates and how to register herd names and different–lots of different things. So this is also a document–not a document, really, but a book–that is free online. You might not be able to get the most current version because that might be password protected for ADGA members, but just Google searching “ADGA good guidebook”, I can pull up a 2022 version. There aren’t that many changes from year to year. And so that can provide you with a lot of information if you just pull up a version from a couple of years ago. So that is the guidebook.

In short, that’s what the judges follow if you ever do show, but it also in terms of their rules and how they evaluate animals. But it is just a really, I think, a vital tool to have if you want to have dairy goats and be successful with selecting those dairy goats.

Deborah 06:59
And one of the things I wanted to also add is that when I was getting started, I went to an Illinois Dairy Goat Association workshop way back, like 20 years ago, and the person doing it said, “If you’re raising dairy goats, you’re raising meat goats. And if you’re raising meat goats, you’re raising dairy goats.” Like it really is a whole package. You’ve got to pay attention to the mammaries on your meat goats, because you want them to grow big, healthy, meaty kids. And most people who are raising dairy goats are going to have extra males that wind up in the freezer. And so you’ve got to pay attention to the body too. So it’s a whole picture.

So let’s talk about–so first of all, like the mammary system I think is probably the most important, because regardless of what kind of animal you’re raising, meat or dairy or even fiber, they’ve got to be able to feed their kids well. And if you don’t pay attention, I’ve seen some incredibly unbelievable udder photos where the udder is literally like on the ground. And that doesn’t happen overnight. That happens because people keep breeding goats. The udder is getting lower and lower and lower and they just keep breeding them instead of putting them in the freezer.

So can you talk a little bit about the mammary section of the scorecard and why all those things are important?

Emily 08:20
Yep. So I will say in the scorecard for ADGA, both General Appearance, which is kind of the structure of the animal, and the Mammary System, both are a lot of the same number of points–35 points. And that is very much by design. And so, 1) you need to have a mammary system that’s very well supported. And that is the biggest area on the scorecard, which is 13 points out of that 35, but you also have an animal that can walk around and jump on that milk stand or walk around and get their food. So feet and legs are very important and are 15 points.

And so you need to have both correct structure so an animal can thrive and live and feed themselves, but then you need correct structure in that mammary system as well so it’s held off the ground, held above the hocks. If the animal goes to the bathroom, you don’t want the mammary system hanging so low, or so incredibly large, that it’s going down into the manure every time they squat to go to the bathroom. Or the kids, you know, that’s a risk for mastitis.

You know the other things when you’re looking at a mammary system, teat placement. Teats that are way to the outside, those are hard to hand milk. Teats that are way to the outside are brushing against dirty legs all the time, like also increasing that risk for mastitis as well. And so a lot of the things, again, in the scorecard, are designed and worded as such that if those things are true, then your animal should give you milk and produce for you and be able to raise kids for a very long time–again, barring any problems kidding or other health issues and management issues.

But if their mammary system is structured in such a way that reduces risk to their health, and then is large enough to produce enough milk to propagate them in raising kids, and then they have that structure in their bodies so that they can walk around and get food and be comfortable doing all of those things, then those two things are the most important for having an animal that, again, meets that goal of the scorecard, which is function efficiently over a long, productive lifetime.

In the mammary system in particular, the areas of the scorecard that they list out, udder support has the most points. That’s 13 points. What that means is just how well that mammary system is supported against the body, and so the strength of the attachment in the fore udder and the rear udder and on the sides, and then a medial suspensory ligament. This medial suspensory ligament defines the halves, and it holds the mammary system against that body wall as well. And so having a strong medial is going to clearly define those halves and support that mammary system as well. And then the attachments that I was talking about is the fore udder here, the rear udder attachment up here as well.

Next, when we move into the mammary system, you have the fore udder. You want that to have length to it and width to it, because again, more length and width means more area for milk to be. Same with the rear udder–you want it high and you want it wide. Because again, if this is very narrow, you’re not going to have milk there. If this is very low, that’s area that’s not filled up with milk. It’s a problem. If you can only see the mammary system behind the leg and not in front, that’s not a very balanced mammary system as well. You want a mammary system and udder that milks out really well, because again, that speaks to production.

And so if it’s just all meat and tissue, then they’re not milking very well. And then the last thing are teats that are uniform in size and medium length and diameter. So again, if you are somebody that has two goats and you milk them by hand. It’s going to be a problem if the teats are really large and hard to milk, if they have very small streams. If they have really wide streams, that can be an issue with bacteria getting up in there as well. And so having them, all of those different traits about a mammary system all lead to an animal that’s more productive for people that want to have productive goats.

Deborah 12:32
I know one of the things that I hear when I talk to people who have meat goats is that, you know, they have this goat that’s got an udder that is like on the ground or within an inch of the ground, and I tell them that this goat really needs to be put in the freezer. Because they’re like, how do I help the kids nurse? And it’s like, well, you really can’t, and that goat should go in the freezer because that’s not a good mammary system. And they’re like, oh, but it’s because she has so much milk. Can you explain the flaw in that assumption?

Emily 13:05
Yeah. And so you want production. You do really want production. We want to see that with our animals. But if that animal has a mammary system that’s on the ground, they’re much more likely to have mastitis. And again, that’s a pretty extreme case, but you won’t have an animal that is able to raise her kids if they can’t nurse. And sometimes that can even happen if they have really tiny, tiny teats that are pointed to the very outside that babies might have a difficulty. You might see that with the miniature breed, Nigerians or Pygmies, where they have such tiny, little teats that are just because of, potentially, a lack of a medial or teat placement.

And so it’s all about balance. Our scorecard is about balance. You can’t have capacity without the support. And if you have support but no capacity, then you have no milk. And so you don’t want these little udders that, sure they’re sucked on, but there’s no production there. You don’t want that either if your goal is to have milk. Now, if your goal is to have a pet, maybe you want just a cup of milk a day for whatever purpose. Maybe that meets your needs.

But if you go to the other extreme, where you have a mammary that is just, you know, swinging back and forth as they’re walking, you’re much likelier to have an animal that you’re going to have to have an expensive vet bill, because she might get mastitis. You might have issues with those kids if she’s raising them, because they’re not getting the adequate nutrition, and now they maybe get taken over by disease because they’re not thriving, and so you just open yourself up to a lot more hosts of problems the more defects that your animal might have.

Because, again, those are scorecard, and then the defects that we can go through all are for being able to select those animals that are healthy and live a long time and produce a lot of milk for us.

Deborah 15:03
Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk a little bit then about the general appearance and the rest of the body, and what you want to look out for in terms of just overall soundness, you know, for an animal that’s going to have a long, healthy life and be able to get to the hay feeder forever and all that kind of stuff.

Emily 15:24
Right. So if you are going out and you’re going to buy your first animal, you know the first thing you just kind of start at the head of the animal, and you look at–in our scorecard under General Appearance as well–-you look at the head. And one of the very first defects that’s listed is, do they have an overbite or an underbite? If it’s quite severe, that can impact how well they can eat. You look at things such as width of that head. You look at things such as strength in that head, because if you have strength and width in the head, you’re most likely going to have strength and width throughout that whole animal.

You don’t really want animals that are super, super narrow and not having width for a mammary system, not having capacity in their body to eat and thrive. So you can look at kind of just strength and substance. And so general appearance, what I’m talking about, you want that strength in that head. You want a nice muzzle and bite that is equal. You want things such as strength all over.

Our front end assembly, we want front legs that are placed directly underneath the withers. That helps with ease of motion. If they’re too far forward, that can impact how they walk and the soundness of their shoulder assembly. They can be more likely to break down if those front legs aren’t properly placed. We want front legs that are walking straight towards us and not walking like this, with their legs kind of paddling out as well. Then the back and the rump, we want a nice level back, versus something that’s really roached. You could maybe, or like a very steep or narrow rump, you could have issues with hitting and having just ease of motion for that animal as well.

If you have a really, really big dip in the chine, again that can impact the front end and how they’re–just ease of motion. You’re looking at an animal, and you drive up and you say, Okay, I want to buy this goat. If they’re lumbering about and they just seem like they have difficulty walking, and they’re two, how are they going to look in six or seven or eight years? You know you want–you’re buying an animal.

Nobody wants to buy an animal for a year and then have to replace them, or in three years and replace them. We want to buy an animal that’s going to last for a long time, and having that correct structure is going to help with that. That rump angle, again, talking about kidding issues. I’ve had a doe before that had a quite narrow rump, and every time I’d have to pull kids, because she could get them out, she could get big kids out, but I had to assist every time. And so we want to have a rump that is big enough for kids to pass through without needing assistance.

But additionally, if they do need assistance, being able to get in there and then having enough room under that rump for that mammary system to fit nicely and not having problems as they’re walking around as well. You want a goat to be comfortable, because we think about, even ourselves, if you injure something, you’re going to shift your weight to another part of your body to compensate or to alleviate pain. And so if that’s happening on an animal because of a structure issue, it’s just going to lead to more mobility issues in the long run.

Rear leg angulation, again, is another one. It’s all about mobility, and so having that proper angle provides a more smooth and free motion versus being really stiff and straight-legged. They may have a harder time jumping up on a milk stand. They might have a harder time walking a long distance to a feeder or to come in to get milked if you do a lot of, like, pasture raising, things like that.

Deborah 19:02
And for people who are listening, she’s talking about the rear legs. Now, you don’t want the rear legs to be real straight and posty. The rear legs should have nice angulation.

Emily 19:12
Yep. And then our rear leg set from the back is also important. And so again, we want rear legs that track forward and straight and have that width between them. So if these hocks, and one of our defects is close-in hocks, if those are really close, you’re pinching the area of where the mammary system is supposed to be, and it’s not as comfortable. There’s likely going to be issues with how they walk around that mammary system as well.

And so, again, for mobility issues, you want to have a nice forward, wide motion with rear legs. Pasterns and feet are a really big one. One of the very serious defects–because the defects are arranged as mild to moderate, serious, very serious, and then disqualifications–and one of the very serious, and I’ve seen this one time in a friend’s herd, they had an animal that had very crooked or malformed feet.

And that animal, by the age of three, they had her living in the milk room because she couldn’t walk, and they had to put her down because she just couldn’t walk. These feet were all curled underneath each other and walking on the side of the feet and almost no pastern, but you don’t want feet that’s again, inhibiting motion.

So that’s General Appearance. It’s a very important category, just as important as the Mammary System. Those two really play with each other or need to be balanced out with each other. The other two categories that have less number of points assigned to them are Dairy Strength. Different qualities about Dairy Strength–like a long, lean neck or a nice, flat ribbing–that all is kind of the structure that makes an animal more likely to milk and be productive. If they’re if their body is very round, that’s more area for the fat to just kind of build up and muscling to build up. So they’re just not going to milk as well. They’re going to put all that food they’re eating into making muscle and fat.

And we, if we have dairy goats, we want them to be eating a lot of food and putting that food into making milk. And so if you have a nice, flat, clean bone, that’s not going to happen, versus a real round bone, and you can see that with, like, dairy cows versus beef cows, or dairy goats versus meat goats.

And then the last category is Body Capacity, which is looking at how much capacity they have, you know, in the ribs, spring of ribs, so capacity for those lungs and chest. Again, that’s speaking to having a deep and wide chest, all kind of talking about the capacity of that body to support the function of that animal.

Deborah 21:44
In the session that you did at ADGA, you talked about how some of these things will change over time. And you know, you might look at a young animal and not be too worried about it, even though some of these things are not perfect versus other things. You look at it and you’re like, Oh no, that is not good. Could you talk about some of the differences between some of those things?

Emily 22:05
Yeah, and I just kind of flipped to the defects here as well, to kind of talk about that, because it really speaks to a lot of those things. So a serious–some things that are just not going to change that are listed on our defects are an undershot and overshot jaw. Now, if it’s so severe that they might have problems eating, that is not that’s not something that’s going to get better. A very minor under- or overshot jaw, and the animal looks very well fed, probably won’t worry about it, especially if I’m not showing.

Things related to motion and structure of the animal that are not going to change are things like knees that are bowed over. So if you stand in front of the animal, and the legs are bowed out in any way, or if the knees, when you look at them from the side, are almost buckling, that’s a structure problem. And it could be maybe a selenium issue, and so you could look at that. But particularly in really young, fast growing kids, I have seen that kind of fix itself. But if you’re looking at a mature doe and they are having issues with mobility because of things like that, I would be very cautious.

A new defect that they recently added is something called carpal hyperextension. And what that is is where it’s the opposite of bowing. So it’s where the front leg is curved inward, and almost bows like a C. And so we were, I was seeing that. I remember judging a show in an area of the country, and I felt like every animal of this particular breed walked in and their front legs were completely curved in. And so they had to add that–that was just added, I think, in 2022-2023–as a defect that we want to watch for.

So things related to bone structure are not likely to change–close-in hocks. You know, sometimes you can have kids that aren’t super wide, but if their rear legs are touching, they’re not likely just going to miraculously have all this width one day. If you see things like an extremely steep rump, that’s a trait that can improve over time. So sometimes our yearlings, especially after they kid they have a steeper rump, they maybe have some swelling as well. That can really change as that animal gets further and further from when they kidded.

And so I’ve had kids that have had a steeper rump, and they kidded as a yearling, and you couldn’t really just look at them for a while, and maybe by that fall that is completely leveled out. And so rump, to me, is something that can change. Now, rump width is not something that just is, miraculously–you’re not going to go from having this really narrow rump on a yearling to this incredibly wide rump. Those proportions are not going to change. And so if they have a real narrow rump, and just narrow-structured throughout, you’re not likely to see all this explosion of width. And so knowing that levelness can change, but width is not likely to change in the rump area. Other things that can change are feet and legs. So front legs, if they’re a really immature doe, they don’t have very much depth. Their front legs might turn out a little bit because they just don’t have that depth of chest yet for those elbows to lay against.

So they maybe just need to deepen out a bit. But if it’s more starting at the top of the shoulder, and it’s a structure issue and they are paddling really badly, then that’s not something that’s likely to change. But I’ve seen slightly turned out feet come in as a doe just deepens out and ages a little bit. Another thing in the mammary system, where we kind of talked about that, is the medial suspensory ligament. So it’s that line that divides the two udder halves when a doe first kids. That’s generally quite flat and just not developed.

And so give those animals weeks and months to develop, and that should come in. And that impacts teat placement, that impacts how well that udder is supported. And so you want to see a medial develop over time, but know that when your animals are first having their babies, you might have a really flat udder, but that is something that changes. Teat size can change from when they first kid, obviously, to when a few months later they might get bigger.

And so you just kind of gotta give those things time. Capacity of the mammary system, that’s going to likely change from one kidding to the next. So maybe they’re not the most productive doe as a yearling, but give them another freshening, and they really come into milk on that second freshening. So kind of evaluate those things. And maybe they had a hard kidding, or maybe they just had a single. So use all of that information to kind of make those decisions as well.

Deborah 26:57
The other thing that people need to be aware of with the mammary system, if a doe’s teats are hanging below her hocks as a first or second freshener, it’s just going to get worse and worse with each subsequent freshening. So there’s really no point in continuing to breed her. Not only is it not going to get better, but it’s going to get worse.

Emily 27:19
Yeah, yeah. And all of those things I was talking about all fall in, again, in that guidebook, and you can just search for ADGA guidebook, and this starts in the Breed Evaluation of Defects area. Those were all just slight to serious, moving into the very serious defects. The very first one that’s listed is pendulous udder and that means a mammary system that’s just hanging, hard or swollen, or too distended to determine the texture, that might be a health issue. And so maybe that’s related to mastitis.

But if you were showing an animal, that would be a really big problem. Double orifices that’s not magically going to go away. A double orifice is a double orifice. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t milk that doe and just have her as your pet goat, but it is something that could be passed in lines. It could, depending on where that orifice is, if it’s on the side of the teats and that’s rubbing against the leg, that could lead to mastitis issues or mastitis risk, and so that’s not something that’s going to change.

The same with leaking orifices and that kind of misplaced orifice. You know, leaking orifice can be a problem because, again, it’s just that that orifice is open, and it’s more of a chance for bacteria to work up into the mammary system. And then also we wanted to use that milk for ourselves or for whatever we’re using milk for, so we don’t want it leaking all over the barn floor. And if that’s a consistent problem with an animal, that’s not going to miraculously get better.

And so when we look at our defects, they are listed in a range of seriousness, ending with the disqualifications, and these are things that are just not going to change. So total blindness. Well, serious emaciation could change if you feed the animal better. Permanent lameness, so that, if it’s permanent for a reason. A blind or non-functioning half of udder. 

Again, you could keep an animal that only milks half of its udder, but if your goal is to have productive animals, then that might be an animal that you might not want to keep. A blind teat, meaning there’s no orifice, and so an animal can kid, and then that mammary system is going to swell up, but you can’t get the milk out. A double teat. I know there’s differences with meat goats that I think double teats are allowed, aren’t they with meat goats?

Deborah 29:38
Yeah, I think so. That’s still one of those things that I’m like, but why do you want that? It’s not a good thing.

Emily 29:47
Right. Active mastitis, that is something that can be treated, but it could cause issues and reduce safe function in the mammary system. Evidence of hermaphrodism, that’s not going to change, or other inability to reproduce. I heard somebody saying that they went to go laparoscopic AI [artificially inseminate] a doe. They opened her up and she had no uterus. So, I mean, you won’t know that, but if you have an animal and you’ve been trying to breed them for two years, and they’re not having babies, they’re probably an animal to move on, unless it’s a pet, and you just that is your one animal.

But you know, if your goal is to have more animals or have milk, and your animals are not reproducing, you need to look at why. Other permanent physical defects, like a naval hernia. If a buck has naval hernia, they are unable to extend and breed. A crooked face on bucks is a disqualification because we don’t want that. That impacts how well they can eat. We don’t want that impacting and being passed through. And then on bucks, there’s just a lot of things that are disqualifications that might be very serious in does–so extra teats, double orifices, and a buck with one testicle.

And again, that’s just because we don’t want to see those traits being reproduced in our does. And so you can, if you have a buck with a double teat and you breed them to everything, then you’re probably going to get some kids now with does with double teats. And we talked about kind of why that can be a problem.

Deborah 31:11
Yeah, I remember hearing very early on, when we started raising goats, that your buck is half your herd. And so I just cringe when I hear people buying the cheapest buck they can find, or the first buck they find. And the reality is, like, you should spend more time looking for your buck and learning everything you can about his mother than anything else, because it’s like, do you want his mother in your herd?

And the thing about, I think sometimes, like, if somebody might look at a buck and say, Oh, well, his face is crooked, that’s just, that’s just cosmetic. But the fact is that, like, he could have kids that are going to have a crooked face, that could be even worse, and then they’re going to have so much trouble eating that they can’t thrive. So that’s the thing people have to remember about defects, is like, just because it hasn’t been a problem for this goat doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a problem for their offspring, because these defects often get worse in the offspring.

Emily 32:11
Yeah, right. And the reason I really would recommend folks, even if you, again, you don’t need to be somebody that shows your animals to know what is listed as defects. In the guidebook that I was mentioning, it details out every single one of these and why it is a defect. And so when we talked about pendulous udders, for example, it says pendulous udders, “such udders are prone to damage and disease and are not long lasting.”

If you talk about–I was going to look at the crooked face on the doe, but I can’t find it at this second–but it just, it does really talk about the, you know, this is the reason that this is a defect. So that carpal hyperextension I was talking about, bowing back at the knee inside profile: “This can cause undue stress to the shoulder assembly by changing the angle and placement of the front leg inside profile, as well as causing abnormal gait and foreleg motion.”

So the guidebook goes into detail about why these are defects, why you don’t want these in the animals that you have in your herd, and not about, you know, why this isn’t going to win in the show ring. That’s not what this is for. This is about the promotion of animals that are going to live those really long and productive lives.

Deborah 33:24
Yeah, exactly. Do you have any final thoughts? Anything else that you think people should know about defects in their goats?

Emily 33:32
No, just that they’re really important. And again, everybody’s goals are different, and defects, if we’re just talking about those, are really on a scale. And so again, I talked about an overbite. A very, very slight overbite might be fine for your purposes of how you have your animals and not impacting them at all. Larger defect, or a larger overbite, then we can start running into issues where they can’t potentially intake the amount of feed that they need.

Here in the guidebook, like I said, a difference of one inch would be considered a serious defect. So I think above all, if you are thinking about getting goats, if you have goats and you’re just not happy about how much they’re producing or how they look, you know, go online and it’s free–the guidebook is completely free–you read through the scorecard and read through these defects and why.

They have pictures of goats in our guidebook as well, because it’s just this wealth of information that I think a lot of new people don’t know about, particularly if you’re not a member of ADGA. It used to be that they used to send every new member a guidebook, and that was wonderful. They don’t do that, but they do make it available online for free. And so I would just really recommend if you have goats now, if you’re thinking about getting goats, if you want to get different goats, and if you have goats and you like your goats, still be familiar with our scorecard and defects, just to evaluate how to improve upon your goats, or to give yourself some reassurance that you have, you know, animals that have traits that are likely going to last a very long time.

Because if you have goats, you probably at some point need to sell some goats. Let’s make sure you’re selling the right goats, and not just goats that have blue eyes and moon spots, because we want animals that are functioning a long time.

Deborah 35:23
Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for joining us today. So can people find you online?

Emily 35:28
Yep. So we have a website, karakahlfarm.com. We have all of our animals listed there and kind of about us and how to contact us. We also have a Facebook page under Kara Kahl Farm, and that’s for both our Alpines and our Toggenburgs. And we’re pretty active on that. Usually, if people contact us via that on a message, we respond. My sister and I both look at that, so we respond within a day or two,

Deborah 35:54
Awesome, and we will have links in the show notes too. So thank you for joining us.

Emily 35:59
Yeah, no problem. It was fun.

Deborah 36:01
And that’s it for today’s show. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to hit the “subscribe” button so that you don’t miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com and you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/LoveGoatsPodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now!