Homesteading with our Nigerian Dwarf
dairy herd in Arizona
At La Buena Vida Farm, we live a wonderful homesteading lifestyle and enjoy the abundance that God provides. We started our small herd in 2008 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 like Cajeta! Our organic gardens thrive on the goat manure too!
We keep our herd numbers very low to ensure the time to dedicate to each animal (yes, our goats are very spoiled!) We raise our Nigerian Dwarf goat herd with a natural and holistic approach to animal husbandry. We try as much as possible to dam raise all kids that are born here. With our optimal herd health in mind, we feel this is an important benefit that increases the overall health and well-being of both the kids and their dam. We want our goat kids getting important antibodies from their own mothers milk. We do bottle train our babies right away so when it comes for our monthly milk testing the kids are ready and willing to accept a bottle (only from their own mothers milk) for that 24 hour period. Our goat kids are always very friendly because they are all handled and loved on daily.
Our focus is high quality production with improved genetics for dairy character, strong structural support and good temperament.
In April 2014, we began year round DHIA (305 day) milk testing through ADGA's performance program with Langston University DHIA lab. In 2016, in addition to milk testing, we got involved with the Linear Appraisal program through ADGA. Our herd planning and selection is structured and evaluated through the information gathered from these programs and overall performance on our farm. Since we starting participating in ADGA performance programs from 2016 to 2019 our herd has produced TEN does who have achieved their Superior Genetics designation, one 2017 ELITE doe, one 2022 ELITE doe and SIX does who have achieved a score of 90 or higher on linear appraisals.
Our authentic 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. 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 Nigerian Dwarf Goat breed standards. All goats in our herd are registered with American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA).
BIOSECURITY: We DO NOT offer buck services. We do annually biosecurity for CL, CAE, and Johnes, always with negative results. We do everything we can to ensure very strict biosecurity practices on and off our farm. We do not vaccinate our herd. Our herd has always been disease free and very healthy. We have never had any health issues with our goat kids or mature animals using our animal husbandry practices.
