If you wanted your child to gain the experience of raising and training an animal, which animal would you choose?
What if your child was fragile and easily hurt?
Mandy Bingham and her daughter, Alexis (Lexi), faced this very situation. They made the smart choice: Boer goats!
Choosing an Animal that a Child Can Feel Safe With
Mandy used to raise and show sheep for years, but when her eight-year-old daughter Lexi started expressing an interest in animals, she didn’t feel super comfortable with the idea of Lexi raising sheep.
Lexi has muscular dystrophy, and though she doesn’t allow her limitations to stop her, she can be easily hurt, and that fact made Mandy think twice about which type of animal might be best.
She wanted her daughter to be able to enjoy the benefits of being in 4-H. Mandy had experienced those benefits growing up, and she knew how valuable it was to learn how to feed, train, and care for an animal, all with the goal of showing it at the summer fair.
Animals teach us many things, like responsibility, kindness, patience, and how to care for another living being. These would be good lessons for Lexi to learn, but like any mother, Mandy wanted to keep her daughter safe.
She talked to Lexi, and they decided together: Boer goats were the way to go.
Lexi leading her goat in the show ring.
Goats Don’t Care How You Get Around as Long as You Spend Time with Them
Lexi had never shown goats before this year, yet she acted like she had at least a couple years’ experience.
The fact that she moved about in a wheelchair made little difference. She was focused on what she was doing, and her goats moved right along with her, clearly unperturbed by her mode of transportation. They followed her quietly and obediently, making it clear that Lexi had spent considerable time training them before she ever took them into the ring.
Lexi lining up with the other exhibitors.
Lexi maneuvered the chair with one hand and led her goat with the other. Each animal she showed walked calmly at her side and turned this way and that as needed to adjust to the various positions required while showing. The goat stopped when Lexi stopped, turned when Lexi turned, and walked when Lexi rolled, all without any hesitation or struggle.
Some of the other exhibitors had trouble with their goats. Their animals reared up, pulled against their collars, or blatted for their friends left back in the pens. Lexi’s goats walked along like old pros.
Lexi keeping her eyes on the judge.
First year showing? Doesn’t mean you have to look like an amateur.
Determination Can Take You Far in Life
After the shows were over, Lexi confirmed what was clear in the ring: she’d spent a lot of time with her goats so they would feel comfortable not only with her, but with her chair.
“I spent time with them every day and every night,” she said, explaining she would go into the barn with the goats and play with them for hours before she started practicing showing them. When I asked her why she spent all that time, she said, “I wanted to train them to be good!”
Lexi, in the middle, talking with our daughter, Colleen (left), and her mother, Mandy (right).
As to how she figured out how to excel as a show person, she says she learned that from her devoted mom, Mandy, and on her own, through Internet research.
“I looked up videos on my tablet,” she said.
It’s true—there are several videos online demonstrating proper showing technique. Lexi obviously studied these carefully, as she did such a good job that she was chosen as one of only five in her large showmanship class to go on and compete in the final junior showmanship class at the end of the day.
This Extraordinary Kid Inspires People Every Day
Lexi also loves horses. In fact, she probably loves them even more than goats, as she rides them frequently. Her favorite is a Paint by the name of “Shadow,” whom she says is half hers and half her mom’s.
Unfortunately, Lexi got into a freak accident just three weeks before the Mesa County Fair goat show. She was riding Shadow with her mom, who was riding another horse, when the two bumped into each other. While they were squeezed together for that short moment, Lexi’s leg got twisted and trapped between them. Her bones are so fragile that she broke her leg.
That didn’t stop her from showing. She powered through it, wrapped the leg, and performed as expected in the ring. Others may have let the injury stop them, but not Lexi.
The judge examines Lexi’s goat while it stands quietly.
“If I want to say something, I say it!” she said. And obviously if she wants to do something, she does it.
What does she want to do when she grows up? She told me she wants to train horses. When I asked her why, she said simply that it would allow her to “see all the different kinds of horses.”
But before she becomes a horse trainer, she’s started in a really good place: with goats. As the saying goes, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy goats, and that’s pretty much the same thing.”
