Linear Appraisal Results - Congratulations to Incredible Violet!

Back in 2019 I signed up for ADGA Linear Appraisal (LA).  If you don't know, LA is different from showing because the goat is judged against the "perfect" goat based on specific traits and structural qualities.  In a show the goat is only judged against the others competing in that particular class.  Which theoretically makes LA a more accurate description of a goats traits.

In 2019 I ended up on the waitlist - but they were not able to fit me in.  Then in 2020 days after I had notice that I was on the list for an October LA (seriously LA in Oct when people are often in the midst of breeding season?!?) they canceled the rest of the appraisals scheduled for that year.  In 2021 I was again skipped but finally this year with only a months notice we were scheduled for LA. 

My biggest reason for wanting to sign up for LA was to get my lovely Violet the recognition I thought she deserved.  She kidded on May 9th this year with a single very large, very stuck doe kid.  It was a battle getting the kid out.  I checked for a second kid, but didn't find anything.  We gave her a course of penicillin but she was having a hard time recovering.  About 5 weeks after kidding she still wasn't herself and I smelled something off and we hit her with a second round of antibiotics that seemed to help for a few weeks.  Then she had chunky kind of discharge and I took her to WSU.  WSU did an ultrasound and then an endoscopy on July 7th and discovered she had a retained kid that she was slowly passing.   They said the best option for her was to allow her to pass the remains naturally and that the process could take several months.  And not to breed her this fall.  LA was scheduled less than 3 weeks away at that point, and I was so disappointed for her.   I should not have underestimated the queen!

Image on the left is Violet in 2019, the udder shot is from 2021.

With only a single live kid and a retained kid Violet's udder wasn't quite what it was in years past, but I decided against scratching her on medical reasons and went ahead and had her evaluated and boy am I glad I did!  Her final score was VEEE90 as a 6 year old 5th freshener.  I could not be more proud of her!

In other news, GraceRidge S One Summer Night scored an +VVV85 as a first freshener.  That is exactly the score I was hoping for given her sire is out of the Castle Rock herd and many of the 90+ LA does had scores in the mid 80's on their first freshening.   In fact, her paternal grand-dam Castle Rock Sarafina had a first freshening LA score of VVV+85.   On her last appraisal she scored an impressive EEEE92 as a 5 year old.  Summer has been sold to a show home, but one of her daughters "Summer Breeze" will be staying here.