The entrance into our milk barn right now. We continue to dream for big things for our dairy goat herd.
Its been awhile since I've posted here. I've gotten emails asking what is up with the herd and the farm. Fall is always busy time for us. With lots of grass to mow, etc., we rarely take summer vacations. We are also mountain lovers, and there is no better time to see the mountains than in fall. Our family visited the mountains for 3 days in the fall.
Mark and I headed to the mountains for our anniversary in October for 2 days. We also rode his Harley to Pennsylvania for my high school reunion in September. Then came November---holidays, Christmas orchestra concerts, decorations, shopping--the works.
Breeding season did occur here, even though I still have not posted a breeding schedule. I intentionally bred late, as I refuse to have babies here again in sub-freezing temps when my barn and kidding set up are not geared for it. We have one doe due in February and one in March. The rest are in April or May. I also have decided that the parasite load in June-August is too hard on kids here, and so for now, breeding season is over. I will send off blood work for pregnancy tests this month along with our annual CAE tests. It looks like I will plan for all 2014 juniors to be bred for fall of 2015, which will extend our winter milk supply.
On a sad note, old man Roulette passed on 12/23. We are very fortunate to have many daughters and two sons here, as well as many kids in performance testing herds across the country. We knew his time would not be far--actually purchasing him at such a late age was a risk. But he settled every doe we exposed him to and was simply a joy to have here. He is missed every day, but is fondly remembered in our memories, and in his offspring.
Our little herd as done well in 2014--with all but one fresh doe having earned AR milk stars. We attended one show, taking only seniors and our girls took Grand and Reserve Champion at that little show. Sunkiss and her daughter, Caprice earned their Superior Genetics titles---with Caprice being a yearling first freshener. We will continue on the ADGA Performance Plus program for its second year in existence. Linear Appraisal should be in June for us. We have two shows we may attend, depending upon our children's activities. May and June are busy times for strings camps and music festivals, and although performance programs will always be our focus, shows are just for fun and our children come first. We hope to get out to the shows to clean up our girls and visit with goat friends, but we'll see how it works out with life.
We wish a Happy 2015 to all! We thank all who have trusted us and bought goats from us in 2014. The joy in sharing our little dairy goats with others is one of the main reasons we do this. We are slowly getting to the performance consistency that we had hoped for when we started this venture. We hope to be able to continue to offer lovely hardy milkers and herd sires in 2015.
Mark and I headed to the mountains for our anniversary in October for 2 days. We also rode his Harley to Pennsylvania for my high school reunion in September. Then came November---holidays, Christmas orchestra concerts, decorations, shopping--the works.
Breeding season did occur here, even though I still have not posted a breeding schedule. I intentionally bred late, as I refuse to have babies here again in sub-freezing temps when my barn and kidding set up are not geared for it. We have one doe due in February and one in March. The rest are in April or May. I also have decided that the parasite load in June-August is too hard on kids here, and so for now, breeding season is over. I will send off blood work for pregnancy tests this month along with our annual CAE tests. It looks like I will plan for all 2014 juniors to be bred for fall of 2015, which will extend our winter milk supply.
On a sad note, old man Roulette passed on 12/23. We are very fortunate to have many daughters and two sons here, as well as many kids in performance testing herds across the country. We knew his time would not be far--actually purchasing him at such a late age was a risk. But he settled every doe we exposed him to and was simply a joy to have here. He is missed every day, but is fondly remembered in our memories, and in his offspring.
Our little herd as done well in 2014--with all but one fresh doe having earned AR milk stars. We attended one show, taking only seniors and our girls took Grand and Reserve Champion at that little show. Sunkiss and her daughter, Caprice earned their Superior Genetics titles---with Caprice being a yearling first freshener. We will continue on the ADGA Performance Plus program for its second year in existence. Linear Appraisal should be in June for us. We have two shows we may attend, depending upon our children's activities. May and June are busy times for strings camps and music festivals, and although performance programs will always be our focus, shows are just for fun and our children come first. We hope to get out to the shows to clean up our girls and visit with goat friends, but we'll see how it works out with life.
We wish a Happy 2015 to all! We thank all who have trusted us and bought goats from us in 2014. The joy in sharing our little dairy goats with others is one of the main reasons we do this. We are slowly getting to the performance consistency that we had hoped for when we started this venture. We hope to be able to continue to offer lovely hardy milkers and herd sires in 2015.
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