# Hands On: Best way to brace your wether?



## HoosierShadow

My oldest daughter is 15, she has a slight learning disability, and she's very shy. She loves showing her goats as many might know 
Her wether is doing really well this year in the shows, but she still struggles to get him to brace well. he braces, but she just hasn't figured out the best way to hold him so that he looks his best/she looks her best. He does have horns as a lot of them in our state do.
The way she likes to brace, he arches his back, and although a friend showed her a way to try and stop that, he still does it.

So I wonder, how do you brace your goat, or how do you prefer to see goats braced?

Photos would be great! I thought this topic might help all the market kids/market parents out. I know from seeing 3 different ways my daughter tried today, that he braced much better with one way, but not sure I like/want her to do it that way.










I'd like to see her try to do it more like this maybe <photo from Barnscoop blog>









My daughter wants to do it more like this:









The way above, he doesn't arch his back as bad. I think if she could do the above example with confidence and not so much uncertainty/shyness, then I think it looks okay. But some kids like to pull the goats head up and have their chin resting on their belly and IMO that looks bad. But the example above looks much better...

So....hand placement, and bracing, what's your way of doing it?


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## HoukFarms

This is how I do mine. for different goats I do different setups






she moved her one back leg but normally she would be set up this way with the far leg the same as the closer back leg.


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## Dani-1995

Push his nose up higher, he needs to have more angle to his head/neck junction. Also don't hold the horns at all... it's a big no-no. Let me see if I have pictures that show what I mean about holding the head.


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## Dani-1995

Here are several pictures of different ways to hold their heads. Most are my sister... she's infamous for changing her bracing style alot! She's very petite and because of this she has to really struggle with the goats to get them to look right. I'm a bit stronger and can typically get them to do what I want without having to change too much.


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## Dani-1995

I'm the 2nd picture, which you may have already figured out. The way I'm holding his head is pretty typical for me. Although I don't always hold onto the chain under the jaw.


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## OakHollowRanch

I am excited to see what people have to say about bracing! This is my first year and we are still struggling to get them to push against us.


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## Dani-1995

The biggest thing is getting them to push off their rear legs and not out of their top. They should be pushing up and at a slight uphill angle when they are pushing hard enough. Legs and top should be hard top


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## jonboyyy

I'm glad to know we are not the only ones that has the problem with bracing.
We are about a month behind everyone else and their goats. We have until October to get our goat to be at weight and trained to walk and brace.
The first goat we got died of coccidia "thats a whole different thread" but we missed out on the show goat clinic because it was the day our "daisy" died. But after a couple of weeks we recieved another goat which is a wether.
So now we are doubling out time to catch up with the others since they have about a month head start.
So over the last 2 weeks my son has been trying to teach him to walk with him and teaching him how to brace. And still it don't wanna do either.
We walk it or should I say "pull him" everyday and we been trying to teach it how to brace off the end of trailer.
I think today we will try the picking up the front legs and walk with him backwards.








jonboyyy


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