Selecting a Milch Goat.- 97 



animal may be presumed to be. At seven or eight years 

 the front teeth begin to wear down, and if much used in 

 barking trees they break or fall out without being 

 replaced, so that a goat with one or more incisors missing, 

 the rest being worn and broken, may be fairly assumed 

 to be old and nearly useless, and should therefore be 

 rejected. 



I should state, however, that although these rules apply 

 generally for distinguishing the age of a goat, there are 

 so many exceptions that they cannot be always implicitly 

 relied on. The precise age at which the teeth are changed 

 varies greatly according to the conditions under which the 

 animal has been reared, whilst the amount of wear and 

 tear they have undergone after the " full mouth " stage 

 is reached depends upon the usage they have been subjected 

 to. If a kid has been forced by high feeding, its teeth 

 are changed earlier than if reared less artificially, and 

 sometimes even when the first pair fall after a year old 

 the second pair will follow within a few months, the rest 

 being rapidly changed in succession. Instances of this kind 

 are clearly shown in the following table, which gives 

 records of careful observations on this point : 



