Linear Appraisal is IN THREE DAYS!!!

I am so excited! This will be my first time to get my goats appraised and I can't wait to see how they do!
For those of you who aren't familiar with Linear Appraisal (often simply called "LA"), the American Dairy Goat Association describes that this  ".. system evaluates individual type traits that affect structural and functional durability, in order to take full advantage of the potential for genetic improvement through selection. ADGA’s Linear System evaluates each animal individually, evaluating traits on the basis of one observed biological extreme to the other. It includes traits that are, at a minimum, moderately heritable as well as economically important.". So basically it is a evaluation of a goat to show their strong points and their weaknesses so that you can be well equipped to make good breeding decisions.
For example you can look at the scores of a doe in your herd, and say you find she scored poorly in the area of udder attachment in the fore. You can then look at different bucks you are interested in using and if their dam, daughters, or grandams' were LAed then you can look for a buck with Excellent scores in that area which will help improve the fore udders of your doe's future kids.
I am learning a lot about conformation by (rather obsessively!) reading up on the subject and studying champion goats from herds like Redwood Hills, Tempo Aquila and Cherry Glen. But the lady signed up to judge my goats in LA has been doing this for almost as long as I have been alive! It is a great opportunity to have experts evaluate my herd, and if used to it's full potential this system can really help improve herds fast!

So I've been busy preparing! All the kids are now registered and everyone is tattooed. I clipped King too shaggy right now..
awhile ago (he was the first goat I ever clipped!), but now I need to do the others. It isn't required that you clip them, but it helps the judge evaluate them if they don't have to look through a shaggy coat! I may just get the longest areas and their udders' though because they really aren't
Hoof trimming was done this week and because of how wet it was I just did some extra worming. The kids hooves were trimmed for the first time. It was interesting.. I didn't have any help so I sat on the ground and put each kid on it's back in my lap with their legs sticking strait up in the air. It's to bad I couldn't take pictures, because it was probably a pretty funny sight!
I have been trying to get a bit more weight on a few of the does that they lost after kidding. They are getting extra grain and some alfalfa pellets and are doing well!

Check back soon to see they all do! :)