Dairy Goats
When we decided on a breed of dairy goat to farm, well, we just couldn't. We had heard horror stories of animals dying from tickborne illnesses in our area and this was a risk we wanted to mitigate. We decided to focus firstly on obtaining and producing hardy goats and to worry about the rest later
Our current ram is Spot who is Nigerian Dwarf x British Alpine. He is not the nicest ram but he produces extremely gentle-natured offspring with beautiful colours. They are a decent size as he is rather large himself and so far they have been extremely healthy.
Our goats are kept safely in smaller camps with shelter, hay and lucerne at night and get to roam freely in the day. Our milking goats get fed a variety of oats, sunflower seeds, bran, chaff and minerals.
Pudding is our smallest goat and she is also Nigerian Dwarf x British Alpine like our ram. She is quite fiesty with other goats but very gentle with people and she has so far proven to be a wonderful mother.
​Lily and Lola are adult twin Toggenburgs, our "apocalyptic" goats. They come from Bathurst and were raised in the veld and hardly needed any intervention, merely the odd dipping. Bathurst is a high-tick area so we figured if they could survive it for a few years, they would do very well with us. So far so good. Lily and Lola are always the first to say hello to new goats and make friends, a characteristic they have passed on to their offspring.
​Pip and Oak are two Saanen females. Oak is mostly along for the ride as she was worm-infested as a youngster and this has stunted her growth. She is however a happy, healthy pet although breeding with her is not off the cards. Pip is a very high producer of quality milk.
Yuna is Lily and Spot's first baby. At present she will be retained for breeding. Uno is Lola's baby. He has currently been leased out for breeding with the option to buy. Lastly, the twins Boots and Sandals are Pudding's babies. They have been sold to a lovely home where they do a lot of gardening.​