PITTSBURGH — When Alexa Miles approached graduation from Fort Cherry High School, she had an uncommon requirement from prospective universities: Her class schedule had to accommodate her barn schedule.
She selected Penn State’s World Campus because it’s completely online. With that flexibility, the freshman agribusiness major was able to spend upward of eight to 10 hours every fall day with her trip of six baby goats. She fed them and cleaned their pens, as anyone would expect. But because she hoped one of them would become a champion, she also exercised each one on a treadmill and washed and conditioned their hair every day, without exception. Those are necessary steps for showing livestock successfully, but they also impart important lessons for everyday life.
“It teaches you to be compassionate because you’re taking care of other living things that are relying on you to survive,” she said. “If you don’t feel like working up and feeding them, then they don’t eat. So it teaches you to be compassionate and very hard working and dedicated because you have to do it every day. You can’t just decide I don’t feel like going to the barn today.”
Knowing that only one of her kids — note the double meaning — could compete at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, she narrowed down that group to her most promising one in December, a goat she named Eddie.
The 106th Pennsylvania Farm Show took place from Jan. 8 though 15 at the show’s complex in Harrisburg. According to Linda Spahr, junior market goat and meat breeding chair for the show, judges look for long- and deep-bodied goats with only a small amount of fat, since their muscles don’t incorporate it, or “marble,” the way cattle do. They look for an even distribution of muscle across the animal and “some eye appeal,” such as perky ears and an inviting posture.
“It’s not unusual to hear ‘a goat came in because it wanted to win,’” Spahr said. “That’s a lot of work on the young person’s part at home.”
Noticing those characteristics, plus his silky hair, Eddie and his handler were named Grand Champion Market Goat in the 4-H class and Champion Overall Goat Showman in front of family, friends and mentors.
Miles is the third generation of women in her family to show livestock. While she learned plenty about that process from her mother, grandmother and aunts, the changing industry caused her to adopt mentors along the way to modernize her knowledge.
“The livestock industry changes day by day,” said one of her mentors, Forrest Ohler, 32, of Rockwood, Somerset County. “You have to adapt to the piece of livestock you have, what you have to feed that certain one for the show ring.”
For Ohler, Miles and a small group of others, that involves receiving hard-to-obtain goat feed by train from Texas.
“Goats were just being introduced to this part of the country 20 years ago when my aunts and mom showed,” Miles said. With an influx of immigrants from the Middle East and Latin America into the area, the demand for goat meat has increased, and local supply as responded. Over the past three years, the number of goats coming into southwest Pennsylvania farms has increased more than 2 1/2 times, according the state’s 2021 Economic Impact Study.
Miles notices that trend when she whittles her herd at local auctions. While she used to get around $100 for a goat who didn’t meet show standards, that number is now around $300 or $400.
That might sound like a nice profit, but when her time in the barn is combined with veterinarian bills, hotel and gas costs when going to shows, feed and more, there’s little, if any, money to be made, though she’s not counting.
“It’s just kind of like my sport,” she said. “I’ve done it my entire life. I enjoy it. Even if you don’t make a lot of money, it’s still worth it,” partly because of her bond with the animals.
Her Instagram feed shows her in a sparkling dress, her formal dance date in a tuxedo and both posing with her goats. And naming her animals denotes a closeness that might prove problematic when it comes to selling them to those who will process them for meat. It’s a fine line, but one she’s toed since shortly after she was able to walk.
“You just have to get yourself in the mindset when you buy them that we’re going to pamper them and give them the best life we possibly can,” she said. “They’re going to be taken care of like kings until the show,” where Eddie was sold after his championship day.
She sent him off, as she does all of her animals, with affection and gratitude.
“Whenever I sell an animal, I always thank them for giving me a great season and winning whatever we won, accomplishing something big,” she said. “I give them a big hug and a kiss, and I always thank them.”
