Nubilop-Acres Summers Hey Babe
Doe (female) | 3 years

LLG Goats April
Doe (female) | 5 years

Nubilop-Acres Thistle
Doe (female) | < 1 year

 Our dairy goat journey started with a kid. Our little Nubian doeling, Thistle, was purchased from a show herd in Nebraska, and we chose to keep her horned since we'd be keeping her with our horned cashmere herd, and we do not personally show (horns on dairy goats are not allowed in the show ring.)

But we wanted milk sooner than waiting two years for Thistle to grow up and deliver kids, and we wanted to have some experience with a doe on the milk stand who knew what she was doing, rather than having our first milking experience be trying to train a first freshener. So we found April. She's a Mini-Nubian, and at five years old, we figured she knew the drill. However, she had not been milked all year, and had already weaned her triplets when we first got her. That and being moved to a new herd tanked her production and we found we were only getting 2-2.5 cups of milk a day from April.

So we reached back out to the farm where Thistle came from. We were very impressed with their animals, and knew that they'd been planning on downsizing their herd this year. They let us know that they'd be willing to sell us Thistle's dam, Hey Babe. So another six hour round-trip drive, and we brought Hey Babe home to our farm. April was in love from the moment she saw her, and still follows around her Amazon friend like a lovesick puppy.

We're looking forward to when we can freshen both mother and daughter side-by-side and see the influence Thistle's sire had. A couple of AI breedings are already planned for both of them.