Wild Horns????

 [Home]

Jack Mauldin
April 15, 2009

 

One person's "wild horns" are another person's focus to  improve and financially justify the horn set on Boer goats. In April, 2009, we participated in a show. As the class was being removed from the ring and the judge commenting on the placements, out of the blue, stated that he was not placing War Dancer near the bottom because of his horns. Nothing had been said about any horns up until that time. After the show, we had War Dancer visually inspected by the same judge. He passed inspection but the judge commented on the papers our buck needs better horns.  If he had no problems with the horns, why would he take the time to document that since it normally is only used to describe why an animal did not pass. That tells me the judge did not tell the truth about the reasoning for placing our buck.

We have been participating in a few shows each year for the last five or six years.  We continue to hear from some judges that our bucks' horns are too wild. Once when showing Painted Warrior at a two day show, the first judge placed him at the top of the class, commented about his ennobled head and horns and then did the same thing when he visually inspected him. The next judge placed him last and commented that Painted Warrior did not have that ennobled head and horns, with special emphasis on the horns being too wild.

PW's War Dancer
We have had ABGA directors and judges tell us how to change the shape of the horns to look the way judges would like to see them. It is common knowledge in the industry that many breeders serious about showing, are physically changing the shape of their animals horns and yet you will never hear any of the associations say that should not be done or is unethical. That means the offspring you purchase from those "high dollar" animals may not look like the artificially changed Sire and Dam.  Ask a director or judge if this is or is not happening.  It is fairly easy to identify young kids that have had their horns altered. I wrote an article about this and it is at Head, Horns and Necks. 

The point of this article is "we will not artificially change the horn shape of  any animal on our farm. We believe it is totally unethical." We also believe the shape of the horns of Painted Warrior and PW's War Dancer are better than what most judges are considering the preferred look. We are proud of the horn characteristics that are in our breeding program and we stay away from other genetics that have the ABGA Judges preferred horn set and the potential problems that can come with them.

Painted Warrior
The picture to to right was sent to us from a breeder after they read our article on Head, Horns and Necks. This is a picture of a buck with the approved ABGA look and you can see the results. There is no financial justifications for having the horns sweep back close to the neck and take a chance of this occurring. It can get worse with infections, having to remove the horns and more.

ABGA standard recommendation for horns

"Horns should be dark, round, strong, of moderate length, positioned well apart and have a gradual backward curve before turning outward symmetrically."
The benefits of the horn characteristics from our bucks are:
  • The horns will NEVER rub on the neck of the animal.
  • The horns will NEVER cause infection on the neck from rubbing it raw.
  • The horns will NEVER have to be removed because they are causing infections from rubbing the neck raw.
  • The horns will NEVER limit the movement of the head because they are hitting the neck.
  • There is less chance of another animal's leg getting caught between the horns and causing leg injury  because the horns are always growing away from the base away from the neck and each other.
  • An animal is better able to use the horns to scratch their entire body than with the ABGA preferred horn set.
  • Because the horns quickly spread outward, young kids are less likely to get their head hung in the fence than with the ABGA preferred horn set that allow the head and backward sweeping horns to get in the fence but stop the head from coming out.
  • More ability to use the horns for protection. Nature did not give goats horns just for looks. Horns are part of their defense but the ABGA preferred horn set minimizes the animal's ability to protect their self other than just butting.

These are financially justified reasons we have for continuing to breed for this type of horn genetics. Ask the ABGA judges to financially justify the horns sweeping back near the neck and finally curving out. Ask them if there is a chance of the horns rubbing the neck and if any ennobled animals have had their horns removed because of similar problems. There is absolutely no reason other than looks for wanting that characteristic in the horns.

ABGA wanted to have the standards have single teats as the preferred characteristic. They had no justification for that. We researched and decided we prefer four teats and documented the financial justification for it. We wrote an article discussing our views.  The ABGA removed the text in the draft standards stating that single teats were preferred over four teats.

ABGA culled animals that had excessive color and would not allow them to pass visual inspection. We researched and decided that more color did not change the quality of an animal and we believe there is some financial justification for breeding for more color, which we are. We created a web site explaining that "color" was not bad. We partitioned ABGA to accept colored boers and had 150 other breeders, directors, and judges sign the partition in agreement. ABGA changed to accept non-traditional animals as an equal however the ennoblement program required a separate "Non-Traditional Ennoblement program for colored boers. Several years later they finally dropped the "separate but equal" ennoblement categories and now colored and traditional are considered the same.

ABGA believes that the horns sweeping back near the neck and then curving out is the preferred look but has no financial justification for it. We have been researching and believe the horn set our bucks have is better and we can financially justify that. We certainly will not be changing the genetics or, as many breeders are doing, artificially altering the shape of the horns to go along with ABGA's unjustified preferences. Breeders buying our animals can rest assured that the horn sets they see on our animals were given to them by nature and not a vise, rasp or grinder. Winning is not that important to us.

We have no problem with not taking our animals like PW's War Dancer to any more shows. It has become a waste of time, energy and money. We have one doe that only needs one show point from one of her daughters and she will be ennobled. So we will carry that daughter to some local shows to see if we can get her dam ennobled but being ennobled no longer has the value it once did. We will support the local shows but we just disagree with too many of the "fashion trends" the judges select as winners such as long giraffe necks, bulldog width in the front and big feet and bones. None of those can be financially justified and it is certainly not worth our time to fight them any more. Our biggest payback is the good feedback concerning how our animals look that we get from other breeders and visitors to our farm. They are the real judges. They are the customers we have to please and so far they say we are on the right path.