FRYEBURG – Stephanie Bender, 25, of Amherst was the only person who looked anxious at the Fryeburg Fair’s dairy goat show Monday. The cavernous exhibition hall was one of the more peaceful parts of the fairgrounds, filled with placid goats chewing cuds, their quiet owners and just a few spectators.
“I get all stressed out. I am the one who loses all the sleep over it,” Bender said as she held a rope wrapped around one of her Recorded Grades, a hybrid goat.
Bender’s profession is raising and breeding both hybrid and La Mancha goats. One of her hybrids – some might say the under-appreciated “mutts” of the goat world – won best in show at the fair last year, she said, “a good day for Recorded breeders.”
But a contest in which so many details of a goat’s physique are scrutinized tends to put her on edge. The judge checks the goat’s legs, foot placement, how well-attached the udder is, how full the udder is with milk, the line of the goat’s back and the curve of the rump. The list goes on and on.
Bender’s sister, Carolyn, 27, was more relaxed. The sisters have been attending goat shows for 20 years. Stephanie said, “It’s a family tradition.”
But Carolyn never developed the same kind of attachment to goats her sister did, which began when they were children and their mother enrolled them in a 4-H Club, a youth program sponsored by the Department of Agriculture that teaches farming and home-economics skills.
“I was more in with the fashion and clothing side,” Carolyn said of the club. “She did the clothing, too. She hated it!”
Carolyn said she works now as a manager for the restaurant Ruby Tuesdays and lives in southern Maine. Stephanie has stayed on the family farm to care for the goat herd.
“My sister loves the animals,” Carolyn said. “I come and help her.”
The Benders were not the only sister duo at the goat show. Next to their goat pens were the Parker sisters’ goats. The Benders’ and Parkers’ goats were not getting along. A couple of them were attempting to head-butt each other between the wooden slats separating the pens.
But the Benders and Parkers were much more genial with each other, being part of a group of goat farmers who exhibit animals at New England agricultural fairs.
Carolyn Bender said the fair connects farming families in Maine. “It’s kind of a traveling circuit. We all know each other.”
Abbe, 18, and Bethany Parker, 15, were busy all of Monday pulling one or two of their 32 goats into the sandy inner circle of the barn to be assessed by the judge. During the down time, they played cat’s cradle with some string or did crossword puzzles.
The Parker sisters live on a farm in New Ipswich, N.H., having recently moved from the Bangor area. They said their mother wanted to get goats when they were younger because goat milk is easier to digest, richer and sweeter than cow milk.
The girls are home-schooled with their 11-year-old brother, and this week were at the fair with their father. Together the girls made a strong defense for goats. They have to fend off questions from people who believe in all sorts of myths about goats, such as that they will eat anything and the ones with the stubby ears appear to be deaf. Bethany said of the La Mancha breed, which has practically nonexistent ears: “Yes, they only read lips,” completely deadpan.
When asked if the goats were less intelligent than pigs or dogs, Abbe rebutted this possibility with a harrumph behind her no.
Abbe told a story that not only demonstrated the high IQ of one of the goats, but also her love of agricultural fairs.
“We used to have a goat that would get upset when we didn’t take her to shows,” she said. The goat’s name was Twist, and she passed away last year, Abbe said. “Not only would she get mad, but when she didn’t win, she would sulk in the corner.”
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