September 2011 Update

Well another breeding season coming around. My parents use to say " the older you get , the faster time flies!" They certainly were right!! Can't believe we are in September already.

It has been a wild ride this year and hard decisions made. As most of you probably know by now, Glen fell down the stairs Jan. 31 and fractured his C2 vertebra. This resulted in a rigid neck brace for the next 4 months and very diligent restrictions on activity. Of course, we had 62 does bred and getting ready to kid!! Mike and I somehow managed to make all but 2 of the deliveries and all the kids were raised on a CAE prevention program. Needless to say this was quite consuming and the poor girls were lucky many times that they were milked at least once a day!

Our show season was very limited and we missed the National Show which was only 4 hours away!! We did manage to go down to watch the Togg and Oberhasli shows and enjoyed visiting with our friends from all over the country. What a great group of people.

We made some tough decisions in cutting back on animals this year . We will be revising our website in October with our breeding schedule. We will breed no more than 40 animals.

Alpines:

We probably will only be breeeding CH Waiilatpu Cherubim only if she can be AI'd. The other older does will be retired and we have sold the young milkers and will be keeping 1or 2 kids at most.

Lamanchas: We have 3 lovely Lamanchas and a Lynnhaven dry yearling that will get bred. We have decided to retire Little Rainbow French Pie. She will be 13 in the spring. We will be getting a new buck from Lynn Fleming and we are very excited about it.

Nubians: We have a token few left .

Oberhasli:

They took the hardest cut. Sold several and kept only what we felt were the best. Looking forward to see our dry yearlings in milk.
Toggenburgs:

Again some hard decisions and we lost 2 of our Little Creek does--only Sugarplum remains. We have several doe kids out of Rendezvous that we are excited about . We also have a new Junior Herdsire from Joan and Charlie Rowe . His info will be available as we update our website. We are happy with the young stock that is coming up and feel we are headed in the right direction.

Saanens: Our newest breed and must say I have come to like them very much. We have been very fortunate to have two beautiful bucks who have given us lovely animals. We finished our first home grown Saanen this year in the three shows we went to. We also have just added a few does from Hi-Land Farms in New Hamphire. Those who have been in Saanens for a long time will know Jean Hurlburt.

Now we have to sit down and continue to work on our breeding program .

Good luck to everyone and watch for more updates as they come . Glen , Donna, and Michael