282-The 'Book of the Goat. 



sarily the sort that will make a big goat or a good milker. 

 At the goatling stage one can begin to look for the points 

 which go to fill the pail, and precocity in the matter of 

 udder and teats is a good sign in that direction. 



Here comes in the vexed question of whether a goatling 

 should be allowed to be shown in milk or be disqualified 

 if it has borne a kid. For the sake of fairness and 

 judging all on an equal footing, the latter should perhaps 

 be insisted on, but there is such a thing as a goatling 

 sho%ing a well -developed bag, and even giving milk, 

 without ever having been mated, and it would be equally 

 unfair towards the owner of such an animal to have it 

 disqualified because it exhibits abnormally perhaps the 

 very quality that shows are intended to promote, and most 

 breeders are anxious to secure. In the absence, however, 

 of any rule in the schedule to the contrary, it seems to me 

 that a judge can hardly shut his eyes to such unmistakable 

 evidence of a coming milker, and refuse to place it above 

 others in which the same quality is not displayed. 



Judges are, indeed, often placed in this difficult posi- 

 tion wl.en adjudicating in a class of goatlings where an 

 exhibit is in milk as a consequence of having bred or is 

 due shortly to kid, as such an animal, assuming these 

 milking features to be prominently displayed, has, as 

 previously remarked, a decided advantage over others. It 

 is, nevertheless, scarcely possible to ignore the very points 

 which, if the animal were a month or two older perhaps, 

 and entered in an adult class, would ensure its taking a 

 high position ; and yet it must be admitted that by giving 

 such an animal priority it is a direct encouragement to 

 early breeding. In my opinion, if a precocious goatling 

 exhibited in milk is at all under-sized in consequence of 

 its condition in this respect, its inferior size should 

 weigh against its merits as a milker. If, on the con- 

 trary, the size, in proportion to age, is equal to the best 



