Crowded show... ah, the drama.

Fullhousefarm

True BYH Addict
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
616
Reaction score
886
Points
203
Location
Florida- land of the endless parasites
This will be our 5th year showing at our State Fair in Feb, which has a Youth show, a pay open show, and a no-pay open show- all ADGA sanctioned.

Three years ago they started using a huge commercial tent. The ring and pens are all in the tent. Last year it was maxed out with 500 goats plus babies. I just heard on the Facebook page that this year they have 600 goats entered. This is the most crowded show we usually attend, but it's 25 minutes from our house AND they have a really great youth program and education. I'm already stressing about how crowded it will be. We have 12 goats signed up plus babies. We have to take all the babies because we dam raise and milk in the morning- and even if we didn't we are usually gone from 7am-10 pm and couldn't feed bottle babies at home.

Any great hits for managing at a crowded show?

We don't usually take and store extra hay and feed for the whole week there since we can bring more half way through. We don't leave our trailer because every year the parking lot gets flooded and they have to pull everyone out with tow trucks.
 

OneFineAcre

Herd Master
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Messages
9,139
Reaction score
10,265
Points
633
Location
Zebulon, NC
The ring and pens for 600 animals are all in 1 tent?
Must be a huge tent
 

NH homesteader

Herd Master
Joined
Jul 9, 2016
Messages
3,815
Reaction score
3,857
Points
353
Location
New Hampshire
That sounds very stressful! How do people manage herd health with that many goats in one place?
 

Latestarter

Novice; "Practicing" Animal Husbandry
Golden Herd Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2014
Messages
11,384
Reaction score
17,481
Points
623
Location
NE Texas
wow... not there yet but following... that's a lot of animals in one (what size?) place.
 

Fullhousefarm

True BYH Addict
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
616
Reaction score
886
Points
203
Location
Florida- land of the endless parasites
Oh, it's a BIG tent. I'll see if I can find a photo.

With aisles and requesting to be next to other herds we trust bio security in the pens isn't to bad. We try to put a tack space between our goats and unknown goats and use tarps to minimize contact if we are penned back-to-back or next to another herd. Last year we were on an end with tack space or an aisle all around our goats other than one 6' section that we tarped and put our Nigerians in since they can't reach over the fence.

These should give some scope to the tent size- it's about 1/4 ring and 3/4 pens. The top photo shows about half the width across the tent. It's length is 3-4x longer.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3086.JPG
    IMG_3086.JPG
    94.9 KB · Views: 169
  • IMG_3091.JPG
    IMG_3091.JPG
    123 KB · Views: 189
  • IMG_3103.JPG
    IMG_3103.JPG
    134 KB · Views: 171
Top