Homesteading with our Nigerian Dwarf dairy herd
Our goals include high quality production with improved genetics for dairy character, strong structural support and good temperament.
At La Buena Vida Farm, we live a wonderful homesteading lifestyle and enjoy the abundance that God provides. We started our small herd in 2007 with no experience in farming or goat husbandry whatsoever. Our family has come to absolutely love our Nigerian Dwarf goats because they are the perfect homesteading animals. Our Nigerian Dwarf goats give us ample rich, sweet milk to drink. We also use their milk to make a variety of cheeses, kefir, and sweet deserts too! The manure is collected and composted, then put back into our organic gardening system. We like to keep our herd numbers small to ensure the time needed to dedicate to the care and attention each animal needs (yes, our goats are very spoiled!). We raise our Nigerian Dwarf goats with a natural and holistic approach to animal husbandry. We try as much as possible to dam raise the kids that are born here. We feel this plays a very important role in the overall health and well-being of both the kids and their dam. That being said, we do bottle train our babies so that when it comes to our monthly milk testing time the kids are ready and willing to take a bottle for that 24 hours period. Our goat kids are always very friendly because they are all handled daily.
Our herd focus is high quality production with improved genetics for dairy character, strong structural support and good temperament.
As of April 2014, we began year round DHIA (305 day) milk testing program through ADGA. In 2016, in addition to milk testing we also got involved with the Linear Appraisal program through ADGA. Our herd planning and selection is structured and evaluated through the information gathered from these performance programs. Once we starting participating in both ADGA performance programs from 2016 to 2019 our herd has produced TEN does who have achieved their Superior Genetics designation, one 2017 ELITE doe and SIX does who have achieved a score of 90 or higher on linear appraisals.
Our Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goats are working farm animals that our family has come to depend on for a variety of quality homesteading dairy products. We believe that correct structure will support a doe in her long career as a working asset to our farm. Most of our animals are very easy to work with and have pleasant temperaments. Because we are a working homesteading farm, we have a strict culling policy. We only breed and offer for sale what we feel are the highest quality animals, meeting the breed standards. Our Nigerians are registered with American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA). All does and breeding bucks are registered at our expense. A certificate of registry and transfer will be provided at the time of purchase. Registration in any other registries will be the buyer’s responsibility.
BIOSECURITY: Our herd is closed to protect our animals from diseases like CL, CAE, and Johnes. We do not offer buck services. We have done periodic testing randomly over the years, all with negative results. We rarely bring in new animals, but when we do it’s always from a trusted, confirmed negative herd. We started lightly showing our animals in 2021 and we ensure very struct biosecurity practices outside our farm. We will now be doing yearly biosecurity tests to confirm our herd maintains a disease free status.
