Entry Guidelines

To enter your goat in MDGA’s Virtual Show, you will need a few high quality pictures of your goat. You need a side picture, a front picture, a rear picture and a top picture. For does in milk, a close up of the fore-udder is also required.

You may resize your pictures to as small as 600x800 pixels, but please do not edit them other than that. Any pictures that have been 'doctored' to make the goat look better than they really are, will NOT be accepted.

Accepted breeds:

Mini Alpine
Mini LaMancha
Mini Nubian
Mini Oberhasli
Mini Sannen
Mini Toggenburg

Here are some recommendations for showing your goat off to the best of his/her potential:

Clipping your goat helps a lot to give them a clean look and lets the judge see their body better.

If you can’t body-clip your goats, give them a ‘dairy clip’ i.e. trim the udders, feet, and any long hair.
This show will be judging the goat, not you, so please keep yourself out of the picture as much as possible. :D

You don’t want the goat hunched up, so keep their head up and in front and their rear legs back a little.

Don’t stretch the goat out like a race horse – their front legs should be straight under them and their back legs should be plumb from hock to hoof with the thigh curving upward to the hip.

For the front picture, you want to show the width of chest and straight legs – don’t let them splay their legs out.

You want the rear picture to show their escutcheon (the arch between the legs where the udder is on a milking doe). This should be high and wide, so take the picture from an angle that the judge can see this area. This picture should also show their rear legs well.

In the top picture, keep their head straight in front of them so their body is straight.

Keep the background of the picture as simple and uncluttered as possible. A sheet can provide a good background that will help the judge see the animal instead of your barnyard.

Take your picture on flat, solid ground – a wood, concrete or blacktop surface is good. This will help the judge see the goat’s feet.

For does that are in milk, trim all excess hair away or, preferably, shave the udder. Make sure you take the picture right before milking so her udder is full.

When taking the side, front and rear pictures of your goats, get down at their level – your camera should be about level with the middle of their body or a little higher.

Make sure you take the pictures square on – if you are too far to the front of the goat or too far back for the side pictures or off center for the rear and front pictures, it can make your goat look like they have an out-of-proportion or lop-sided body.

Here are some pictures to show you how your pictures should look: