Raising Goats For Dummies
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To a show your goat, you need to pretty it up a bit by washing, clipping, and trimming hooves. Not all goat shows have the same grooming requirements, so check before you clip. Here are some hints for preparing your goats for showing.

Clip your goats two weeks before a show to allow any mistakes to grow back.

To clip a goat for a show, you need

  • Clippers

  • Clipper oil

  • Scissors

  • Brush

  • #50 surgical blade

Follow these steps to clip a goat for a fuzzy goat show:

  1. Secure the goat on a stanchion by tying it with a short rope to a fence or by having another person hold it.

  2. Brush and clean the goat.

    Brush the goat thoroughly, removing any down. Then clean the goat's coat with a waterless shampoo or use a few drops of mild dishwashing soap mixed with warm water in a spray bottle. Mist the coat and dry with a towel. Do this several times over the whole body until you can't see any new dirt on the towel.

  3. Clip with the grain of the hair, starting around the neck and cutting it shorter in the front.

  4. Trim the hair with the grain from the front of the throat down to the shoulder and around the neck to the back.

    Put less pressure on the clippers to remove decreasing amounts of hair as you move to the back. Lightly clip to remove any long hair on the brisket.

  5. Remove excess hair, clipping with the grain, between the elbow and knee on each leg.

  6. Still clipping with the grain of the hair, remove excess hair on the flank and belly.

  7. Lightly clip along the grain to remove any long hair from the escutcheon and the back of the thigh.

  8. Clipping against the grain, trim the sides of the tail and leave a 2-inch brush on top.

    Use your scissors to even the end of the brush.

  9. Working against the grain, remove the hair at the top of the hooves and under the dew claw.

  10. Clip inside the ears.

    If your goat has ear tattoos for identification, this will help the judge see the tattoos.

  11. Clip off a doe's beard, cutting against the grain.

    Leave the beard on a buck; it makes him look more masculine.

  12. Working against the grain, clip as much hair off your goat's face and ears as you can get.

    You don't have to trim the bony part of the face because the hair is thin here already. Trim up the neck and chin. Trim the cheeks on each side, keeping them symmetrical. Trim the poll (top of the head where the horns were).

  13. Shave the udder of a senior dairy doe with a 50 (surgical) blade.

    Clip the udder when it's full so you're less likely to nick or cut it. You'll also do a better job on a full udder.

    Lift one leg at a time to clip the sides and back of the udder. Hold each teat between the thumb and two fingers to avoid nicking as you trim around it.

    If the medial ligament has a deep cleft, leave a little hair on the bottom of that line so it is not accentuated. If the medial ligament is not strong, leave a small amount of hair on the bottom of each half of the udder.

    If the foreudder attachment isn't smooth, leave about 2 inches of slightly longer hair down the middle of the belly to give it a smoother appearance.

  14. Brush the hair off your goat and evaluate the result of your clipping.

    If necessary, neaten up by removing excess hair that you have missed. You can use scissors or press lightly with clippers, going with the grain of hair.

  15. Give your goat a final brushing to remove cut hair and then put her away.

Let the clippers cool down when they get hot and apply clipper oil to keep them lubricated.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Cheryl K. Smith has raised a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf and Oberian dairy goats under the herd name Mystic Acres since 1998. She is the owner of karmadillo Press and is the author of Goat Health Care, Goat Midwifery, The Best of Ruminations Goat Milk and Cheese Recipes, and Raising Goats: Some Essentials.

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