2014 in review
In the fall of 2013 we began our journey with dairy goats. When we got our first two Nubians we had NO IDEA what we were doing. We started with two bucks. We thought we were getting "meat goats" for our sons to do a 4-H project. After a little, scratch that, a lot of reading we realized we had dairy goats. Nubians. Two bucks. Now what?
Much more reading, talking to "goat people", internet searching and Craigslist perusing later, we aquired Darla in a trade. I kept the younger buck and traded the older one for Darla. By that time 4-H fell through for us. Too many baseball practice and work schedule conflicts for us to attend meetings and adequately participate. So, we decided to breed our doe with our young buck and learn how to milk a dairy goat and provide milk for our family.
After spending a month in the same pen with our buck we had no idea if Darla was pregnant or not. We assumed she was and prepared ourselves for kids sometime in March of 2014. As we entered 2014 we learned more about the ADGA, registration, bloodlines, dairy goat diet, goat management, animal husbandry, blood tests, vaccines, dairy goat vocabulary and so on. We literally knew nothing when we started. In fact, we were one of those families who thought goats ate tin cans. We were clueless. But we were learning fast and enjoying every second of it.
On March 19th, as I was getting the kids ready for school, I looked out my back window to see our doe squatting. I went out to check on her and watched the big bubble I'd read about, and had seen on Youtube goat delivery videos, merge and burst from Darla's back end. I remember squeeling with excitement and running back into the house to announce that it was time! I grabbed my phone and my boys and we watched our first ever live animal birth.
In April after more reading and research I decided to give milking Darla a go. A really nice neighbor of mine who has Nigerian Dwarf's lent me her milking stand. I set it up in the garage and nervously attempted to milk our first freshener. When I first put Darla on the stand she kicked like crazy and I think I milked a total of a cup from her before I gave up out of concern that I was stressing her out. In the following weeks and after yet even more research I learned and so did Darla, and after many frustrating days of kicked- over milk pails, we developed a routine. By summer we were getting a steady supply of 2 quarts of milk every morning.
I kept barn records and watched Darla's twin doelings grow. I spent a lot of time with them while they were small and though they were dam raised, they were (are) very human friendly.
In the September I watched Darla and her doelings come into heat one right after the other. We bred Darla with our buck Duke and set up breeding appointments for Daisy and Daylight at Veteran's Ranch.
In November we aquired our first ADGA registered Purebred Nubian doe from Di-Rich Farms, Esmeralda. Esmeralda is such a sweetie! I thought Daisy and Daylight were human-friendly! Esmeralda makes Daisy and Daylight look wild. She walks with us wherever we go. She's got such a great temperment. Esmeralda has transitioned over the last month or so and is fully accepted into the herd with her place in the ranks amongst our 4 does. We also sold our buck in November leaving us with four bred does and a wether.
This month we had all our does tested for CAE, CL, Johnne's, TB, and Brucellosis. We also had the joy of confirming all our does' pregnancies with ultrasound images. All our does have at least twins! Just today I got confirmation that all our does are negative for CAE, CL, Johnne's, TB, Brucellosis. I had Esmeralda tested for G6 and we're thrilled to say she is G6 normal. We will have our American does tested for G6 also once we reached 100% American Nubian in the spring of 2016 (Lord willing).
In February of 2015 Darla will kid. We plan to sell all of Darla's kids and Darla. We will be sad to see her go, after all she has taught us, but she will make a GREAT family dairy goat for someone. Darla started our American Nubian line and we will sell or cull all of our perent American Nubians until we reach 100% American Nubian status. Daisy and Daylight are both due to kid the first of April and will also be for sale. They were both bred to excellent purebred bucks at Veteran's Ranch. Their kids will be 75% American Nubian. I can't wait to see their kids. I'm expecting spots and and a variety of goat-baby cuteness!
It's been quite a year. We are so blessed to get to raise these facinating creatures. We are very thankful!
So from our blessed lil' {suburban} Nubian dairy goat ranch to you and yours- may your 2015 be blessed. May you know the One who created you, gives you life and saves your soul!
