Kids on their best behaviour at Goat Show

Almost 50 goats were entered into the competition, with prizes on offer in a range of categories, including best milking goat, best kid, and best goatling.

Guernsey Goat Society secretary Mandy Girard was pleased that so many of the show’s regular entrants had turned up despite the morning’s torrential rain.

‘Without them we wouldn’t be able to do something like this,’ she said.

‘We are always on the lookout for new faces, and you don’t need to own a goat to be a member of the society.’

When it came to judging, Mrs Girard said that judges looked out for the quality of the top line of a goat’s back, as well as its udder,and how nicely it walked.

She added that she was optimistic about the future of the Royal Golden Guernsey breed, especially in light of the visit of King Charles and Queen Camilla to Guernsey last month.

‘It’s really put Guernsey on the map, since then we’ve had so many enquiries from people all around the world wanting to come here on holiday to see the goats,’ she said.

‘We think there are about 1,400 Royal Golden Guernsey goats all around the world, most of them are obviously in the British Isles, but there are one or two in the US.’

During their visit the King and Queen met Royal Golden Guernsey Tamsin, and she was present at the show along with her owner Rebecca Martin.

‘We’ve been bringing goats to this show for years, my mum had goats before she had me,’ Mrs Martin said.

‘Tamsin is obviously quite well known now, but on the day of the visit it was just like showing her off to anyone really, we do it so often that it’s just second nature.’

She said her goats tended to not like the rain, and so was keeping them under a tarpaulin to stay dry.

‘They hate it, they always have done. Hopefully we will win a few prizes to make the day a bit more worth it.’

By far the biggest goat on show was eight year-old Rex, a Boer and British Alpine cross.

Owner Charis Burgoine did not know his measurements, but said it had been a task just walking him up the road to get him to the show.

‘We’ve had him for his whole life, we never thought he would get to this size,’ she said.

‘He’s been neutered as well so he could have actually been bigger, it just means he can be a bit difficult to move sometimes, but he’s very gentle.’