Kids take center stage at 4-H Fair goat show

A test of wills.

Those four words are how 4-H mother Lisa Romine describes the annual Goat Show at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair.

In the Lil’ Wranglers exhibition, Kylin Eckelman, 10, was helping her 4-year-old cousin, Karter Morey, exhibit a pygmy goat. But the moment the animal entered the 4-H Pavilion, the tiny goat started to refuse to budge, forcing the girls to almost drag the pygmy around the arena.

“I got kind of scared for a minute,” said Kylin, a second-year competitor who attends White Creek Lutheran School. “I thought he was going to faint like some other goats did.”

But to their credit, Kylin and Karter kept their cool and determination. Eventually, the goat realized he had met his match and cooperated until he was taken out of the building.

Judge Mason Guthrie, a Washington County native who has been showing livestock for 12 years, gave Kylin and Karter credit for their efforts, as well as all the Lil’ Wranglers. Any child entering kindergarten, first, second or third grade this fall is eligible to participate as a Lil’ Wrangler, a 14-year-old program intended to give young future 4-Hers exhibiting experience.

“You definitely have to be encouraging because they are the future of the program, and we want them to keep competing for years,” Guthrie said.

Due to inflation, many 4-H families have found goats an excellent choice for fair competition, 4-H leader Elly Rutan said. Initial and ongoing costs for maintaining goats are much less than raising larger livestock, Rutan said. It’s also a plus that housing goats can be easily done with a small pen and a shed, she said.

But one of the best reasons for having a child exhibit goats is peace of mind, the 4-H mother explained.

“You can send your children out to work with their animals without constantly having to be there to supervise, because they aren’t going to get trampled or ran over like they might with a steer or a pig,” Rutan said.

While Karter had her older cousin to help her in the Lil’ Wranglers show, regular 4-H members must do everything for themselves at the goat show.

17-year-old competitor Dylan Cordes says he has been showing goats since kindergarten. His 18-month-old doe attempted to challenge the CSI New Tech student, but due to his experience, Cordes only needed a few moments to reaffirm his dominance over the animal.

“I’ve had smoother times in competition, but I’ve also had more challenging times when the goat just refuses to cooperate,” Cordes said.

That wasn’t the case Saturday. For his efforts, Cordes received the championship banner in the pygmy junior doe division.

In Bartholomew County, raising goats for 4-H competition is often a family affair. In the four categories for Alpine milking doe, there was only one competing teen whose last name was not Beck.

“I‘m one of nine kids,” said Ruth Beck, 17, who won the championship banner while competing against four of her siblings. The home-schooled Beck, who got her first goat in 2017, said her family has 30 does and wethers.

Those who think owning one goat is enough don’t know goats, she said.

“They will have issues, because they get lonely,” Beck said. “It’s no fun for anyone to eat alone, but goats will stop eating and drinking. They need someone, or some other goats, with them.”

One of the most experienced competitors brought 11 goats to the fair this year. 17-year-old Columbus East High School student Riley Croddy says her family still has up to 50 more goats back at the farm.

“I train them a lot,” Croddy said of the animals placed in her care. “I not only have to wash and shave them, but I also have to spray their fur. So I usually spend about an hour with them every day.”

Croddy, who says she has been showing goats since the age of 3, took home both champion and reserve honors in the Saanen senior doe division.

So what type of criteria is used to judge goats? Guthrie, who is part of a livestock judging team at Vincennes University, says each animal has to be judged from the ground up.

In the dairy goat show, Guthrie looks at a doe’s structure for her ability to maintain an unborn kid for the entire five- month gestation period, as well as udder quality for producing milk.

But when judging goats for market purposes, Guthrie says he examines the size of various parts of the animal to determine how much meat and muscle mass is on the animal.

And it turns out the pygmy goats are more than just adorable. They can be used for both market and dairy purposes, the judge said.

In addition, pygmy goats are different from other farm livestock because several families choose to keep them as pets, Guthrie said.

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