Weld County Goat Extravaganza

[Nanno]

Phil and I will be in Greeley this weekend with our crew for the Weld County Goat Extravaganza. I'll be teaching a harness goat class at 11:00 on Saturday. If anyone here is from that area I'd love to meet you there! It's a really fun show because it has dairy, fiber, and meat goats all competing at the same time in different rings, and there are classes for both bucks and does. It's fun to see such a wide variety of breeds on parade at one event. For now the working goats are still just a novelty and not part of the main event, but if enough people get interested perhaps one day we could have a packgoat obstacle challenge and a driving class. 

[Nanno]

Oh, and if any of you have a moment, please read over my harness goat handout and tell me if there is anything I missed or need to change: http://www.packgoatcentral.com/forums/sh...p?tid=1338

[Nanno]

We had quite a weekend at the WCGE. It was fun but also stressful because I we brought Nubbin and the bottle kids as well as Delilah and her babies. Why did we bring all these goats we weren't showing? Because no one could come three times/day to feed bottle kids, and since Nubbin is their main source of food she had to come as well. Then there was Delilah. She came down with a mild case of mastitis as a couple of days before we left, and once again there was no one to doctor her while we were away. So I brought all these extra goats who had to live in my trailer for the weekend. Of course Delilah got much worse on Friday before we left, so there was no question of leaving her at home. Luckily she improved again over the weekend and I think she's on the mend. She's never stopped producing milk so her kids are doing well but I'm tired of giving hot compresses, peppermint balm udder massages, and teat infusions.

The clinic went well. Phil says it was my best presentation at the WCGE. Quite a few people attended and I had them all come into the ring so they could see the harnesses up close and get their hands on the equipment. We had lots of good questions and all but one of my handouts was taken. Finn was a very good boy except for pawing at the legs of whoever was holding him. I wish Cuzco could have been there to demonstrate because he's always so well-behaved at these public events, but unfortunately his coat will not be presentable until I can bathe and clip him--something the weather did not allow me to do prior to the WCGE. So Finn had to fill in for Cuzco, and he was very patient and easy to handle, but he does get awfully excited by any little attention, and if he's not being asked to do something he usually starts to paw at our legs. It was annoying but I have to admit I'm very grateful for the pawing. It's a huge improvement over the spraying, which has been his favorite way of dealing with excitement in the past.

I got to talk about NAPgA to a few folks. I couldn't work it into my harness goat clinic as there were too many other questions to cover and not enough time, but I had my working goats display set up with the pack saddles laid out and NAPgA business cards for people to take. I wish I could have spent more time working with Finn and Sputnik and showing people all the fun things goats can learn. Sputnik knows almost a dozen tricks now and is very good at most of them. But unfortunately I had to spend a lot of time in our trailer taking care of Delilah and two bottle kids. Delilah was bad enough Friday night that I hardly slept a wink worrying about her and praying for her recovery. It didn't help that Phil talked to one of his goat show friends that evening and found out that he had recently lost five goats to mastitis when an infection spread through their milking machine. I didn't know what I'd do with three orphaned babies and only one milk goat! Fortunately nothing horrible happened and she was improved Saturday. It turned out to be a very good thing we brought Delilah with us. We were able to get a shot of Exceed and some banamine from the on-site vet, and he only charged us $5. Had we stayed home I would not have had such easy access to a good vet on a weekend, and I would certainly have paid a lot more money!

So all in all it was a mixed weekend. I'm glad we went but I'm still pretty exhausted. I think everyone enjoyed my class enough that I hope we will be included again next year.