January in South Dakota

The frost envelops the trees at night, and we awaken to a winter wonderland. It was -8' F this morning when I took the photo above. No wind thankfully. 

We have record snowfall for the season, over 40" so far. This region has been in a drought for a few years, so the white stuff is a welcome sight. That picnic table sits in our front yard. Thankfully, the snow doesn't all fall at once and some melts in-between storms, so we are able to get in and out of the property with relative ease on most days.

 

Farm Update 2023

Hello World! We are back online again after a few very busy years. I have a lot of exciting changes to share with you. Here goes...

  In the summer of 2020, we were evacuated multiple times due to fires close to our home. The SQF Complex fire came within two miles of our farm and produced dangerous dense smoke for months that left me and a few of my goats with long term lung issues. We made the tough decision to leave our birth state and everyone we love behind and decided to move east.

  We sold the house quickly, put everything in storage and boarded our animals with friends and headed east on Interstate 80. We searched all over Utah where my BFF now lives, but property prices there were higher than those in California for small homesteads. We continued north to Idaho which had little available at that point too, so we kept moving east through Wyoming and into Nebraska and then north to South Dakota. We then traveled east to Virginia, checking properties along the route.  

  My heart was set on The Mt Rushmore state. The plains are beautiful. The Black Hills are majestic. The people of South Dakota are warm and friendly and they helped me win over My Hubby.

  Escrow closed Spring 2021 on our latest small farm and I trailered my goats here myself to begin our journey.  We bought a historic homestead with a farmhouse that was built on this lot in 1909. We have just six acres, but they're all level and tillable. We have two older barns Jerry has been remodeling for maximum comfort for the animals, a large chicken coop and the soil here in The Missouri River Valley is so fertile it is amazing.  

We finally have high speed internet again, after many years stuck in the Sierras with only satellite internet so I plan to start blogging again. I am eager to share some of the things I've been working on. Stay tuned.

Heidi

 

We have a website for our nigerian dwarf dairy goat herd

I have been raising nigerian dwarf dairy goats since 2013. This is one of my passions.  I am a member of the American Dairy Goat Association as well.  It's amazing to me just how many changes I have witnessed in this industry in such a short period of time.  We show, milk test, and appraise our herd.  We test annually for all the major caprine diseases. We recently started a website just for our goat herd.  It's slowly being populated with members of the herd, our breeding schedule, news and updates.  If you're interested in learning more about these special little goats check out our site here.

SPRING MEANS KIDS ON THE FARM

Kidding season is just around the corner at Tres Rios Ranch and I am eager to see the next generation of nigerian dwarf dairy goats born to our herd.  This year we are freshening more of our own homebred does than ever before. Hooray!

It's an opportunity to see how much I have actually learned about dairy goat conformation during all the lectures, classes, shows, linear appraisal sessions, and my own experience milking my does for the last several years.

Stay tuned.

Heidi

Kidding Season...

Well, another successful kidding season is almost complete.  We currently have ten kids from four does, and are waiting on sweet little Mocha to kid and that will be the last kids for our farm this year.

I brought in one adorable doe kid from the fabulous Alethia Homestead herd this season.  I have had a reservation for an Algedi Farm D Capella kid for a few years and had expected it would not happen since Capella is up in years, but she blessed me with my precious Cassiopea (The Queen) and I could not be more happy.

I have to get out there to tattoo and get kids ready to go to their new homes soon.  I have just one doe left for sale, a few nice bucklings, and two boys that will be wethered shortly.

Addy is as usual, my milk queen. She had been milking over four pounds a day until temperatures climbed above 105 degrees this week. 

I noticed that her udder was not full this morning and saw her allow one of Goldie's kids to suckle from her teat.  That was a BIG surprise as Addy has never before been caught allowing any other doe's kids get near her udder in four years. Just goes to show that people and animals can change.  

We had our herd linear appraisal on June 15th and my entire herd of adults got the best scores that we've ever had I think.  I learn so much from these evaluations and comparisons among my own herd members.  These scores will form the basis of my next breeding decisions.

We are in another historic heatwave right now.  It was 109' yesterday.  Likely to be the same today.  I better head out and check on water buckets again and offer some more orchard grass to keep the herd moving and drinking in this hot, humid weather.

I hope you have a great week,

Heidi