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About Pemberley
Acres Dairy Goats
I hope you enjoy this
section of our web site. Here you can learn about our history,
herd health, and management practices.
Lucy M and
me at the 2007 Virginia State Dairy Goat Show. This was my
last year of eligibility for the Youth Show and we went out with a
bang! Lucy and I won Senior Showmanship (my first and last
time at the State Fair), Linnet was Reserve Champion Jr. and Marta
was Reserve Champion Sr.
How it all got
started...
In
the year 1995 our family decided to take the plunge and start
our own herd of high quality llamas. At that point in time the we
were living in a northern Virginian suburb, but found a nearby llama
farm to board our first llamas. Besides llamas, the farm
owners, Steve and Renee Orr, had a large herd on Nigerian Dwarf
goats. Within fifteen minutes of my parents' first visit to the Orrs,
one of the Nigerians walked up to Mom and untied her shoelace: and
the rest is history!
For
several years, the we maintained a small pleasure herd and, though
not showing, always placed great concentration on maintaining
excellent herd health. We registered the entire herd with the
American Goat Society under the herd name SIDES. In 2001, I took
interest in raising and showing dairy goats and was placed in charge
of the herd with the goal of breeding high quality milkers.
In
2004, the we purchased their first American Alpine doeling and in
2005 I welcomed GCH Bearly STORM-E Thunder 2*D to the herd as a
foundation doe for my Alpine breeding program. With the new Alpine
additions and the opening of the American Dairy Goat Association’s
Nigerian herdbook, the our family established a new herd name with
both ADGA and AGS: Pemberley Acres.
Herd Health
Pemberley Acres is a CAE
free herd and are raised an a CAE prevention program. All goats over six months of age are
tested every fall. We have never had a contagious abscess.
Although we do not regularly test the herd for TB or Brucellosis,
all tested animals (llamas included) have tested negative.
Virginia is also a TB and Brucellosis free state.
Our goal is to maintain
a herd of excellent health. We believe proper husbandry and
herdsmanship are the best forms of herd maintenance and disease
prevention. Although being organic would be nice, Mom and I don't
hesitate to pull out the antibiotics. We would rather use something
created in a laboratory and save our goats than watch one die. The entire
herd is routinely vaccinated twice a year. Selenium supplement
shots are given as needed (breeding seasons, boosters before & after
kidding, etc.). We also practice an aggressive deworming
program, deworming every six weeks and as needed. Kids are fed
a feed containing a coccidian stat.
Herd
Maintenance
Our family maintains four separate pastures
that the goats are rotated through at different points of the year.
We have a buck pen a short ways down our driveway.
We've found that keeping the bucks out of sight of the does keeps them from a year-round rut, which makes everyone happy.
They have
year round free access to pasture, orchard grass hay, water, and a
salt block. Minerals and are selectively fed.
The does spend most of the year in our largest
pasture and have free, year-round access to clean water, pasture,
orchard grass hay, salt blocks, minerals and baking soda. During
the winter the does are moved across the road to two smaller
pastures where there is a larger, more insolated barn where all the
girls can bed down during the chilly winter nights. To minimize stress, I grain the does
through the winter. Milkers are grained at least twice a day and
given leafy Montana alfalfa hay.
Kids are weaned off the
bottle at approximately nine weeks of age. They are regularly
grained with a feed containing coccidian stats. Dry yearlings
are maintained a diet consisting mostly of orchard grass hay, a
little grain, and all they can forage to assist their growth but
keep them from getting to... over conditioned.
I hope I've covered everything, but
please contact me
with any questions you have!
Click
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