At RFBG, we do what we can to make the transition from our farm to their new show homes as smooth as possible for you. We complete any and all stressors, such as tagging and vaccinations, when our goats are very young so that they have plenty of time to get over the stress and be healthy for the major stress of leaving our home and moving to yours.

Tagging with ear tags is very important for us at RFBG, not only to cut down on needing to tag them later in life which is more liekly to cause infection but also for selection purposes.

To make things easy for us and you to pick out your perfect show goat, we do color coordinate our goats by their farm tags (photo above) so that you are easily differentiate the kids for sale and those available for lease--yellow farm tags mean they are available for sale and white farm tags mean they are available for lease for show and we hope to get them back after the show season. These farm tags are temporary and should be removed and replaced by their state show tags needed for the show season, similar to an earring.

We also tag all of the goats born on our farm with a Scrapie tag (photo below) for traceability purposes. A state issued Scrapie tag is very important for goats and sheep, are used to trace any diseases back to their farm of origin, and they are required for any goats or sheep traveling to other states and livestock shows. Our farm's Scrapie tags are a light green color starting in 2025.

Our castrated male show goats, also called wethers, are also dehorned at a young age for safety and aesthetic reasons (photo below, of a doe with horns and a dehorned wether). Even though wethers are castrated, they can still grow horns similar to an intact buck which are very large and can be a safety concern for the young students managing them. Also, wethers with horns do not place as high in the show ring as the wethers without, so we do our best to prevent horns or "scurs" (a partial horn) to grow on our wethers for show. 

In addition to dehorning, our male goats are banded at 8-weeks of age using lidocaine coated bands, which cut down on the pain they may experience. It will take approximately 1-2 months for everything to fall off but we make sure they have become acclimated to this change as soon as possible and a few weeks prior to them leaving home.

All of our goats are appropriately vaccinated with a CD&T vaccination in utero and receive a booster prior to weaning. CD&T prevents against an overeating disease, common in goats and sheep heavily fed grain diets, and tetanus. This is very important for show goats and especially for wethers who will be banded and essentially have an open wound on their underside, meaning they are more likely to get tetanus.

We also start all of our show goats on grain diets as earily as possible. We provide a creep feeder to our young goats at around a month old for them to have access to a high quality show feed. The sooner we can get them started on grain, the more likely they will grow faster and be less stressed during weaning at approximately 2-months of age. Our creep feed of choice is a 50-50 mix of Umbarger's Goat Creep and Showrite's Advancer Plus.

Lastly, we trim feet and treat for Coccidia at least once prior to weaning and them leaving the farm. Trimming feet is very important for show goats to appear structurally sound when in motion, which can affect their placing in show, and their feet are more likely to grow fast when fed grain diets. Ask about our manual on show goat grooming, that also details hoof trimming. Coccidia is also very common in goats raised in confinement, and is one of the most common causes of diarrhea in young goats. Coccidia is passed through their feces and is highly contagious, so we treat early to cut down the chance they will become infected and help them build up some immunity early.