Oklahoma State Fair: Goats are getting more attention at state fair

At least that's the opinion of the goat handlers Wednesday morning at the Oklahoma State Fair, gearing up for the second straight day of show competition.

While show judges graded the dairy competition on proportion, stance and sheer “milkability,” Sharon Babcock defended her favorite breed.

Retired from an airplane manufacturer in Tulsa, Babcock said she discovered dairy goats by accident and has just plumb fallen in love.

“And boy, are they spoiled,” she said. “When it gets hot they want to stay in the barn, when it gets cold they stay in the barn — and they don't like rain. First drop that hits them they're gone; they think they're going to melt.”

Babcock runs about 36 dairy goats on the eight-acre spread she shares with her husband, John, near Mannford. For almost a decade they've been traveling the country, competing with the best of their stock.

Last year, in Massachusetts, one of their oldest, a 15-year-old, was named Junior National Champion. On Tuesday, one of her Oberhaslis won grand champion, and on Wednesday she was showing her Nubians.

Next stop, the Tulsa State Fair.

“It's kind of a hobby,” she said. “I don't know anything about judging, but I look at what I like, and if I like how it looks and feels. I don't think anybody here actually has a dairy.”

With soaring feed and transportation costs, running goats is not as lucrative as it once was, said Curt Cash, dairy goat superintendent for the fair. But small-time operators who raise the animals for their own milk supply are having success supplementing their income with milk sales.

Though it carries slightly more fat and calories, goat milk has almost double the vitamins and a bit more calcium, iron and phosphorus than cow milk, he said.

In Oklahoma, farmers can sell as much as 100 gallons of raw milk without a permit. Some also produce cheese, milk and other products from the milk, Cash said.

“It's easier to digest, it's easy on your stomach — goat milk is naturally homogenized, and so a lot of babies that can't drink cow's milk go for goat's milk,” he said.