We are in the process of setting up our Conformation Evaluation program as a Linear Appraisal.   … Stay Tuned ….

So what is Linear Appraisal?

Well, it is seeing the parts of the goat’s body by numbers, so that we can visualize them.  There are rump slopes in percentage, height in inches, and other categories.  The evaluator will watch your goat walk, the you will stop your goat with the front, rear and side to the evaluator. they will evaluate parts of the goat’s body for correctness.

Does it really matter about our Goat’s Conformation?

Well, lets say that you are personally wanting to run a marathon, but your bone structure is too small/week.  You might break your leg bones or injure yourself.  Its the same way with your goat.  Think of your what use your goat was bred for and what you need  him or her to be used for. Also think of kidding ease. Is your goat suited to the use and can she kid correctly? Much of the answer has to do with conformation. This is where Linear Appraisal comes into play.

All to often we see that animals will be viewed by their final score in a Linear Appraisal. However, its important for us to view the animal’s entire appraisal to obtain a good picture of faults and strong points. Its not about prestige of “Oh, my goat has a 95 Final Score.” Its about the parts of the body scoring and how they make up the whole. Conformation Evaluation is not a popularity contest, but rather a tool for us to focus on better breeding, to improve the ability of our animals to perform the task that they were bred for.

How our Conformation Evaluation Program differs from other programs

  • Both online and live (noting that there are are limitations with online, as evaluators cannot evaluate things like skin texture. Yet again, there are limitations to live, because its super costly and many of us have no option for having live evaluations done)
  • Evaluation of orifice size 
  • Evaluation of Milked out Udder (with a dairy goat, we do not want the milked out udder to be as full looking/feeling as before it was milked. We want it to deflate like a balloon, so that there is enough room in the udder to store milk)
  • A little more ease in deciphering what the scores mean
  • We do not require that all goats in the herd are evaluated. It is great to evaluate all, but we realize that financially this may not be possible

Note: We are setting up our program to be cross-transferable with the ADGA Linear Appraisal program. We will have some differences, however.

Alright, so you are ready to do Linear Appraisal. How do you do it?

There are two options:

  1. Online: Submit a photo of your goat walking slowly in a circle, then stop in certain poses. Rear of goat facing camera. Front facing camera. Side facing Camera. Take a good snapshot of the full topical view of the goat.  (Note, we are not looking for ‘set-up show poses’ here. We are looking for the ‘natural goat as it really is, rather than put on for show’.) …     Then submit this to us at the registry. We will have a team of evaluators available to evaluate your goat against the Evaluation Score Card. We plan to do this via live video stream, so that you may schedule with your evaluator to talk with him/her and listen. Then there will be a transcript of your evaluation given to you.  We will discuss this with our Evaluators for price
  2. Live: You can schedule a live Evaluation which will be more indepth than the Online Evaluation.  Your evaluation should be recorded. You will have the option of dicussing the conformation and evaluation with your evaluator.  Again, a transcript will be given to you.  Again, we will look at pricing with our Evaluators and get back with you.