Sometimes crisis strikes and despite our best efforts, we lose a goat. Or sometimes, we move them on to other farms after their work here is done. View these past members of our herd here.
We regret listing and selling Swiss, but we needed funds for hay and she was the only doe listed at a price point that people were interested in paying. We massively undercut ourselves, which will annoy our tax guy, but it is what it is. Swiss is the smartest of all our goats and started out a bit standoffish, but turned into one of our sweetest girls after kidding. Her rear udder height could be a bit better, but she has a really nice U shape and probably the best foreudder of all our Mini Nubians so far. She’s also one of our top 3 Mini Nubian milkers and produced enough to earn her star as an FF! She’s got strong feet that hardly need trimming, although she does have two curved toes. We only chose to list her because her full siblings and all three kids have stayed more or less local to us (and so will she). We also offered to buy one of her daughters if she has one in the spring and if we’re in a better financial position by then.
3rd Gen. MDGA Experimental (due to ears) XN16222*
DOB 03/14/22
Moonspots (?), Chocolate
As we were browsing the best Mini Nubian genetics to bring to the Midwest, we HAD to snag some from Soaring Heart’s, one of the top breeders on the West Coast. We joined their waitlist in 2022 and were shocked when Lavender Blue had SEVEN kids in 2023! When Wendy told us that she picked Midnight for us, we were so excited. We were worried that she’d freshen with a full litter of kids like her dam did, but it turns out that we didn’t need to be concerned about that – Midnight was intersex, with external female organs and underdeveloped internal male organs. She never acted bucky at all, so we’re still going to use she/her pronouns. She was a very sweet & mellow goat and we tried our best to find her a pet or grazing home, but she ended up feeding a family for Christmas instead.
6th Gen. MDGA American (due to ears) AMN19602* | TMGR Experimental DN000302015308
DOB 03/08/23
Possible Hidden Moonspots
We’ll be honest – when we saw Vera, our goal of selecting goats for important-to-us traits before the superficial ones went out the window. She looks like a baby cow and we HAD to have her! After reviewing her pedigree and learning that she’s a Hillary granddaughter, we were even more excited and snapped her up.
We love Vera – she’s a very mellow, sweet doe and she has really, really nice orifices for milking her cute little FF udder. She’s still developing and her udder has a foreudder shelf – it will probably smooth out as she grows into herself, but there’s a chance that it could turn into a pocket. She looks like she has a partial extra orifice – it doesn’t seem to be functional, but we’re listing her and her kids as pets to be safe.3rd Gen. MDGA American AMN18642p | TMGR Experimental DN000302015781
DOB 03/19/23
Polled, Possible Hidden Moonspots
Marky Mark was SUCH a little character! He was our smallest buck, but had the biggest and silliest personality. He passed FAR too soon, from frothy bloat/enterotoxemia after breaking into a container of goose feed. With our vet’s help, we fought day and night for a week to save him, and we thought he was finally safe, but he passed while we were running to the store for more probiotics.
2nd Gen.
03/01/19 – 06/15/23
Moonspots
Penny is/was our favorite doe in the herd and is gorgeous, but her foreudder has a pocket and her overall attachments except her medial aren’t quite there for our goals. Odds are high that some of that will improve with further freshenings, but we had to make cuts somewhere after an unexpected job loss and she wasn’t really close with other herd members. In July 2024, she and her sister, Luna, went to a local-ish farm that makes milk products with their Obers (Steppin’ Back).
American AB2268697
DOB 04/19/2022
Carries Black
Luna was another very hard cut! She actually started out producing the largest quantity of milk among all our goats, at over 6lbs at 11 days fresh as a FF. She unfortunately has a pretty large foreudder pocket, though, and those are officially one of our pet peeves as we work to improve our herd and the breed. She was besties with Diana and we’re worried how they’ll cope, but we will see how it goes! In July 2024, she went with her sister Penny to their new home (Steppin’ Back).
American AB2268696
DOB 04/19/2022
Solid Black
Oh, Moose! We had such high hopes for this guy. He is an awesome dude and ridiculously sweet, but grew out to have a slight underbite and kinda weak hooves. With castration and a careful feeding program, he might make an awesome pack goat! Or, you know, food. A local commercial dairy bought him for their does fall 2023.
Unregistered (bucks from grade dams can’t be registered)
DOB 04/22/2022
Wattles
We tried joining a few waitlists for bucklings in 2024, and the two best ones panned out! Meow was the son of our favorite Fire Cat daughter, Fire Kitty, and Triumph, a promising son of Kane and Joy, the 2019 Reserve National Champion. He was absolutely stunning and just so calm and sweet. Unfortunately, after a 10-day illness, he passed away very traumatically while the vet was too busy to return our frantic calls all day. She did a quick necropsy and at first glance, she believed it to be severe enteritis from clostridium, even though he was vaccinated and we had been loading him up with the antitoxin. We’ll be looking into a vaccine that covers more strains. Later, the lab culture was inconclusive – it showed that his intestine sample was basically dead all the way through and there were no relevant bacteria or parasites found, but the damage indicated clostridium, coccidiosis, or a toxic plant. This loss badly hurt and has us questioning our life choices. He was such a great goat and the vet basically said that she didn’t try harder to save him because most local people don’t care about their livestock or want to spend money on treatment. He deserved so much better.
American AB2378171
03/07/2024 – 09/10/2024
Raz was our first Guernsey-type doe, and we were so excited to work with her. Unfortunately, she passed completely unexpectedly. We’d normally take her to the vet for a necropsy, but they were closed for the weekend and we didn’t have the fridge space to hold her until Monday. For unexplained losses, it’s usually enterotoxemia or pneumonia – both of which she was vaccinated for, but as with any vaccine, there’s not a 100% guarantee of full coverage.
SR030839D / Experimental
DOB 03/26/2023 – 10/06/2024
Finally! Our first Pilgrim goose eggs of the season! We also found a massive stockpile of Welsh Harlequin duck eggs. We’ll try incubating these, but since temps went from almost 70°F to 25 overnight, they probably won’t develop, unfortunately. But progress!
Once again, we’re just waiting on the Partridge Chanteclers to start laying - last year, they took forever, too. We are hoping to bring in an outcross this year to reduce inbreeding & add some more vitality to their flock!
#hatchingeggs #gooseeggs #pilgrimgeese #domesticgeese #heritagebreed #rarebreed
Mar 16
The other day, we let the boys play King of Poop Mountain while we worked on some stuff in that area - by “let,” we mean they bum rushed us as soon as we took down the barrier to get the tractor in 😅
After the grass over there gets tall enough, we’ll leave it open for them for a little while! It’s close to the deer highway on our property, so we usually keep it walled off from the goats to help prevent parasites.
#goats #dairygoats #pasturerotation #farmlife #goatlife #pastureraised
Mar 13
We’re excited to announce that our poultry pricing for 2025 will remain the same as it was in 2024 and most of 2023!
We are part of NPIP and certified free from PT and HPAI, and we are cleared to ship hatching eggs to almost every US state - some require individual import permits that we can work on as needed.
Because USPS has gotten worse again, we can only ship live chicks via Spee-Dee Delivery to areas that they service. We’ve received chicks using them but never sent through them, so it’ll be a learning experience!
Svart Honas are laying well, Buckeyes are SO close to having shippable numbers, Chanteclers seem to be slow dragging again but at least one is laying now, our one & only Welsummer is laying, and we found out today that both Ameraucana pens are eating their eggs again, so we’ll be setting up rollout nest boxes for them… again. Sigh.
Nothing yet from the ducks, geese, or guineas!
#hatchingeggs #exhibitionpoultry #heritagebreeds #rarebreedchickens #pasturedpoultry
Mar 11
Our teeny Daisy wasn’t handling quarantine alone super well, even though she could still see & talk to a bunch of other goats a few feet away, so we gave her a sacrificial buddy yesterday! She’s a whole lot happier now, although her new buddy still isn’t quite sure about her yet 😅 One day, maybe we’ll manage to get a clear photo of them together!
#goats #dairygoats #rarebreeds #oberhasligoats #guernseygoats #goatlife #biosecurity
Mar 10
We can’t get a clear pic yet because this baby has the post-travel zoomies, but Daisy, our newest Guernsey, is here!
Thank you to @meadowlarkheritagefarm for trusting us with her, and as always, thank you to @medicinemountainpettransport for taking such great care of our critters 💜
#goats #dairygoats #guernseygoats #rarebreeds #babygoats #polledgoats
Mar 9
We’re finally trying out the aquarium pump hack that Kathy at A Better Way uses for cleaning milk machine hoses - it’s working really well! We’ve got the pump in our Super Ultra Mega Shopping List on our site (link in bio), but any 800+ gph one will work!
#goats #dairygoats #milkmachine #goatmilk #foodsafety
Mar 7
This pic looks kinda dirty, but we wanted to show an example of something to watch out for 😅
When breeding animals, especially registered ones, it’s important to check them over for faults. This doe has a partial extra orifice - it doesn’t produce milk, at least not yet, and appears to just be cosmetic. Extra orifices like this are a tough one because they might not be visible until the doe freshens for the first time!
We notified her breeder, and this girl is going to a pet home. Her kids are also up for grabs heavily discounted as pets!
We’re not saying who the doe is on this post, because her breeder is awesome and these things just happen sometimes, even with the best of genetics.
#goats #dairygoats #conformation #showgoats
Mar 5
A couple of our chicken pens are now laying well enough to start testing fertility! First are the Svart Honas - these birds, also called Swedish Black Hens, are a highly endangered landrace and are believed to be descendants of Ayam Cemani.
Being a naturally selected landrace and not a manmade breed, there is a bit more variation in their traits right now. The organization monitoring them allows defects that would be considered cullable in Ayam Cemani - they are allowed to have mulberry wattles, floppy combs as long as their eyes aren`t covered, and blue or black ears.
Traits that ARE cullable are white toe tips, raspberry combs or wattles, pink mouths, light eyes, and any white feathering. We are still working some of these out of our flock - we believe we caught the culprit producing white feathers and raspberry combs, but some of our chicks might still come out with white toe tips or pink mouths. Most are a nice, solid black now, though! The Svart Hona melanistic genes are reportedly more complicated than the Ayam Cemani ones, so it`s a work in progress!
#chickens #heritagebreeds #rarebreedchickens #rarebreeds #blackhens #svarthona #swedishblackhen
Mar 4
We present to you the business ends of the Round 1 girls so far! Most still have a bit of edema to work through and two are FFs that are still developing, so there will be lots of changes as the season progresses. We like keeping a record of these changes!
#goats #dairygoats #udders #goatmilk #oberhasligoats #mininubian
Mar 3
And the girls! They were even worse than the boys - all they wanted to do was get in their photographer’s face 🤣
Honey’s daughter is tentatively up for grabs to a pet home due to her super mild underbite, and Vera’s little polled girl is also available.
It’s looking like both of Vera’s kids will unfortunately lose part of their ears to frostbite - we looked for labor every .5-1 hour, but she must’ve kidded super quickly right after one of the checks 🙃
#goats #dairygoats #mininubians #oberhaslidairygoats #babygoats #kiddingseason
Mar 2
We made our first attempt at individual pics of this round of kids - some cooperated, others not so much 🤣
First up, here are the remaining boys! Two Obers went to their new home today. Almost all of these guys are up for grabs - the polled black one is pending and we’re holding onto one of Raindrop’s sons for now. We’ll add deets to each pic on our FB page, or feel free to contact us for more info!
#babygoats #goatkids #dairygoats #mininubian #oberhasligoats #kiddingseason
Mar 2
Someone gave us this StirMate for Christmas, and we’re trying it for the first time today! It’s an automated stirrer that will hopefully help keep milk from burning to the bottom of the pasteurizer 🙏
We choose to pasteurize our milk, at least for the next few years. After each of our does have gotten 3 clean health tests here, we might change our minds, but Jess has immunity issues from Ehlers Danlos and there would still be a risk of contaminants like E. Coli.
So for now, we pasteurize! There are a few methods, but we like one of the most easy-on-milk ones: Low Temperature, Long Time (LTLT) - we heat milk to around 140°F and hold it there for about a half hour.
#goatmilk #pasteurization #foodsafety #homesteading
Mar 2
Farming unfortunately isn’t all fun & games - we’ve got our first loss of the season 💔
Vivi’s boy just wasn’t quite right - he looked like he had scoliosis and his digestive system didn’t seem to be working - we had to tube feed him and found out that there was still milk in his stomach hours after it should have been digested. The poor little guy passed sometime last night.
#farmingishard #godmadeafarmer #farmlife #homesteadliving
Mar 1
Not to be outdone, while we were taking care of Gazelle and her kids, Cornerstone Farm Miss Vivi went into labor with CA Blackberry BQ Encore’s ginormous buckling 5 days late! Jess had to reach in and fish out a leg because his big fat head presented first and he was stuck (goat kids should ideally come out in a Superman pose).
Both of this guy’s parents are covered in moonspots, but he doesn’t seem to have a single one. He is on our keeper list as a backup to Encore!
2025 Tally So Far: 11 bucks, 6 does 🙃
We get a bit of a break to recuperate until the next round of kidding begins 3/19 ish!
#goats #dairygoats #mininubian #farmlife #kiddingseason #babygoats #goatkids
Feb 27
A buck and doe for Autumn-Acres GT Gazelle & Sublime OBV Son of a Sinner! Gazelle kidded fashionably late again, 3 days after her due date this time.
The buckling is up for grabs as market/pet and the doeling will be offered unregistered to people who promise to stay in contact - we want to see if Gazelle’s weird hormonal flaky skin thing is hereditary.
2025 Tally So Far: 10 bucks, 6 does
#goats #dairygoats #goatkids #oberhasligoats #kiddingseason #babygoats #goatlife
Feb 27
We tried out our new Coburn lambar today, and it’s a hit! Now we just have to convince the kids to spread out and use the other one instead of squishing onto just the one 😅
We’ll be splitting up the bucks & does today, so that’ll help!
#goats #babygoats #goatkids #lambar #dairygoats #bottlebabygoats #mininubian #oberhasligoats #goatlife #farmlife
Feb 25
Following what seems to be our trend for the year, two bucks and a doe for Soaring Heart’s Raindrop and Foggy Fork Farm Hot Shot! She’s the first we’ve had to help a bit this season, when the last two kids tried to come out together.
These pics are even worse than usual because we had to rush before work 😅
One buck has blue eyes, a cute blaze, and a moonspot inside a brown spot on his back. The next buck also has blue eyes but no moonspots at first glance - we’ll look harder later! The doe has adorable moonspot pantaloons and is our second official retainee for the year 😍
Raindrop’s udder is really, really nice so far, and as long as it holds up, we’d consider these boys herdsire material. We’ll see how she matures over the next couple months - if they go before then, they’ll make super cute pets!
2025 Tally So Far: 9 Bucks, 5 Does
#goats #dairygoats #mininubian #mininubians #farmlife #kiddingseason #babygoats #goatkids #goatlife
Feb 24
Next on the watchlist due this weekend are Raindrop (still), Gazelle, and Vivi! We’re not entirely sure that Vivi is still pregnant - she definitely was, but is showing zero signs that she still is, and we’re afraid to bump her in case it dislodges any kids that are there. We could do another blood test, but results would take a few days. We’ll find out soon enough!
#goats #dairygoats #oberhasligoats #mininubian #kiddingseason
Feb 23