The "Promote the Goat" display made its third appearance at the Minnesota Veterinary College's annual Open House. The last two years, Leah Maher and I have done the display together, but Leah decided not to do it this year. The weather was really nice; sunny and warm. A lot of people came by the display and looked at my stuff. The Southern Vermont Dairy Goat Association (SVDGA) awarded me a $300 scholarship for the display this year, which was a great help. With most of the money, I purchased the Goat Learning Kit from Ohio State University, which is wonderful. I also plan to use the Goat Kit in my 4-H club. With the rest of the money, I was able to get back issue of The Goat World and The Homesteader's Connection. MDGA also gave me back issues of the GGG to put out. Just about all of the magazines were taken by the visitors. I also purchased stickers, some from Khimaira (thanks for the extras) and had some done up with pictures of goats. The display has grown to two tables, so my mom made another tablecloth. My dad helped make stands for the posters from the Goat Learning Kit to go on.

I had a poster with pictures of goats and pictures of people having fun with goats, a poster with pictures of a goat kidding (people always like that one), and 'The Goat' poster. I also had two posters of breeds-one with the 6 dairy goat breeds and one with other breeds. As I mentioned above, there were magazines for people to take, as well as a list of goat-related addresses and web pages that I researched and compiled, business cards, and other little things. I had a variety of goat books out, and there were stuffed goats sitting on the tables.

The Goat Learning Kit has a lot of posters, all laminated, and you can write on them with a dry erase marker. The answer 'stickers' velcro on the posters, so they can be used over and over. There are picture of the 6 dairy goat breeds, and a couple other breeds. It has posters of goat parts, the goat skeleton, parts of the Angora goat, leg conformation, udder structure, top line structure, vaccinating, hoof trimming, the ADGA scorecards, and more. It also has task cards, one for each poster or set of posters. For the parts of a dairy goat poster, the task card says something like 'Your 5-H leader has asked you to help another 4-H member learn the parts of a goat.' It also came with copies of everything, in case you lose something, a video, a demo CD, and some other stuff.

The open house itself was fun and a good opportunity to see and visit with those wonderful Minnesota goat people! Peg & Dave Daubert had goats there, and their Oberhasli kids were a big hit!

Pam Peterson, 15
Riverview-Ranch Alpines
Cotton, MN