Russ and I attended Sunday evening and Monday of the goat show down in Louisville, KY. Got a chance to see and pet a lot of goats, talk to some of the owners and watch the Toggenburg competition.
It was great to see so many goats and talk to the owners. I was probably most surprised to learn that many farmers do not use the milk to make anything. Many just feed it to their pigs, dogs or kittens. I think I'm realizing that many goat keepers do it as a hobby...a very expensive and time-consuming hobby. This is a little discouraging to me because my ideal situation would be to work a part time job on the side in the beginning, and work towards full time farming and cheesemaking. I guess like anything else, it's a process and it takes patience, time and energy.
Currently I'm enjoying the Tomato Basil farmstead goat cheese from Split Creek Farm in S.C. Mmmm!!! Very good! I also met some goat farmers from southern Ohio. To my surprise, I fell in love with some Nigerian Dwarf goats from South Salem, Ohio. When I mentioned my hometown is Chillicothe, I was in. *grins* A woman whose name is Helen (i think?) was very encouraging and she showed us around and introduced us to a few other farmers including Evan Evans of Split Creek Farm.
Other than that, we watched a lot of Toggs be shown and judged. I had never seen a goat show before. It takes a long time and a lot of walking the goats around the ring to decide on a winner. When the judge announced the results from each group of goats, he or she would line them up and go down the line explaining why each goat placed above the one next to it. So it was very informative and very interesting to see them compared and judged side by side with such scrutiny.
Full results are posted at the ADGA website!!
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