Welcome to our Farm!
Thank you for your interest in a Nubian or Lamancha dairy goat from our herd of select animals. As you browse our pages you will notice that the Senior and Junior does, as well as bucks, have their own pages. Our bloodlines are mostly our own now with special bucks brought into the herd via AI and outside purchases. The extended pedigrees on the animals here have herd names such as Aspen Hill's, Little Orchard, Rockspring, Kismet, Longman's, and Kastdemur's, just to name a few.
Our small farm is located in Craig County, VA in a high valley between two mountains with lots of National Forest and wildlife nearby. We are about an equal distance from Roanoke and Blacksburg, Virginia, and Lewisburg, West Virginia. We are within a days drive of many surrounding states, including PA, WV, NC, KY, TN, and MD. We love visitors to the farm and will gladly show off our beautiful milk goats.
Please feel free to contact us by email or phone if you have any questions or want more information about our dairy goats or just want to talk about goats in general.
About the herd...
Our goal for both herds of goats is to breed a quality animal that excels in the milk pail and is structurally correct, while living a long lifespan. We use DHIR records and ADGA Linear Appraisal scores as our primary gauges of how close we are to those goals. Show awards earned at local and national dairy goat shows are a nice bonus, and are noted when earned, but we are not able to show as often as we like. We also feel that any of our goats should have a loving and calm, or laid back, temperament including the bucks. It's no pleasure to have a goat that you have to chase down to milk or that won't follow you while out packing on a family camping trip. In addition to these shared goals, we want the herd of Nubian goats to be tall and powerful and exhibit very strong breed character. We would prefer the Nubian does to have ears extending past their noses as the breed standard calls for. Lamanchas may not be extremely tall but still have a nice long bone pattern that shows excellent dairy character. Please be aware that our Lamancha does tend to be slower maturing animals that do not hit peak in growth or production until about 3 years of age. I find this to be an exceptional trait as most of the girls live to be 12+ years old and producing kids and milk until close to that age. Most of the Lamanchas are also bred for extended and consistent lactations and most of the does have had one or more years of milking through for the family's milk supply.
Herd Health and Performance
Bucks and does are tested yearly for CAE, TB, and Brucellosis. The entire herd is certified by the State of Virginia as TB and Brucellosis free. Nubians, where noted, have been tested for G6S and so far all animals tested have been Normal.
We participate in the ADGA ITP-02 plan for our annual milk records (DHIR) and have an independent verification test each year. Linear Appraisal (LA) has been done semi-annually in the past but we hope to have our animals appraised yearly. We feel this is a valuable tool to see trends in individual animals as they mature as well as allowing us to seek out particular traits we want to focus on improving in family lines.
All goats are fed a wholesome ration depending on status and age. Breeding bucks and does get a feed ration that is hand mixed and includes sunflower seeds, whole grains, wheat and rice bran, alfalfa pellets, and beet pulp. Kids get a blended sweet feed from our local mill with Deccox for coccidia prevention. All goats get year round pasture and grass hay as well as Bicarb and a high quality custom mineral mix. Heavy milking does are supplemented with alfalfa pellets and beet pulp on top of what is in their ration. All animals are on a part chemical and part herbal worming program. We do believe in prevention and vaccination and we are currently using Calvary 9 to vaccinate against enterotoxemia and tetanus. We also use supplements of Kelp, feeding yeast, Bo-Se for Selenium, and Copasure for Copper Deficiency. More in-depth articles about feeding, vaccinating, copper, and other management issues will be featured in our library at a later date
Thank you for visiting!
Daniel and Karen Torrence
