Breeding Quality and Competitive Alpine Dairy Goats
Frederick, MD
"In the last light of the evening, the air was thick and purple, stars cold and distant high above, as the sun settled behind the peaks of the worn Appalachian mountains. As those last threads of light touched the sky, there was a little green pond hidden among the trees in the cooling air, mist rising from the surface. From that pond, a little white bird, an osprey, rose from the murky water above the trees. In the last light of the evening, the osprey was the skybird." ~Rachael
Hello and welcome to our website. Skybird is a small family run farm in Frederick, MD, which has been breeding Alpines and Nubians for only five years. Though we started with Nubians, we are now shifting our focus on breeding show quality Alpines. We attend local shows in Maryland and neighboring states, and attended our first ADGA national show in 2018. We specifically breed for strong, sturdy does that milk willingly while maintaining a healthy body condition. Many times in the showring our does have been called "fleshy", because you will not find thin or frail does in our herd- they are kept at a body weight where there is adequate muscle covering their ribs and shoulders, which keeps them sleek and healthy year-round. We purposefully keep our herd size to a minimum, keeping only about 10 does in milk each year. With a smaller herd, we give each doe the love and attention she needs, and our herd is extremely healthy as a result.
Skybird will be moving to Rosedale, West Virginia, hopefully in the spring of next year. We bought 102 acres of lovely mountain in central WV, where we will start a dairy with our Alpines. We have already started construction on the main barn, which will be 36'x48' monitor barn, and will have a concrete milking parlor... oh yeah! The second floor on top will be my living space, right above the does. The valley where we will be is absolutely beautiful. There is so much luscious vegetation for the goats to browse on and mountains to climb. It is goat heaven!
Our Management:
The does are fed a 16% sweet feed from Farmers Co Op, quality grass/alfalfa mix hay, and free choice ADM minerals. They are CDT vaccinated a month before their due date, and start getting vitamin E supplements at that time until they kid. Our kids are bottle/bucket raised on the CAE negative colostrum and milk from our does, and mixed with whole cows milk if needed. We put Calf Pro, a coccidiostat, in their milk starting when they are a week old, and they have free choice of grain. They get their first CDT when they are tattooed and a booster a month later. Our bucks are fed a medicated feed with ammonium chloride, hay, and minerals free choice. We only deworm as needed, and that is not very often, but our kids are preventitively treated with DiMethox to prevent coccidosis.
New to our Breeding Program:
In 2018 we invested in artificial insemination for our best does. After attending the national show, we decided to take advantage of the extensive, well bred genetics the dairy goat world has to offer. Some of the sires we chose were Iron-Rod Supersonic, Missdee's Nilan, and Goodwoods James to name a few. We are so excited to finally have our first AI kids born this year, and are confident they will be competitive in the show ring. Kids for sale can be seen in the Planned Breedings page in the "Availability" section. We price kids more than fairly on what we believe that kid is worth. Newer to our program, the AI kids are, of course, priced higher because of the higher quality of the sires. The first fresheners were all bred to our buck, Skybirds Bandit, and the Nubians were bred to Valley Ridge Masondixon. We price the kids out of first fresheners the lowest because the dams are not yet seen to their full potential, but all of our does have quality genetics behind them.
Feel free to contact Rachael with any questions or kid reservations at:
240-812-2077
skybirdacres@gmail.com
Skybird will be moving to Rosedale, West Virginia, hopefully in the spring of next year. We bought 102 acres of lovely mountain in central WV, where we will start a dairy with our Alpines. We have already started construction on the main barn, which will be 36'x48' monitor barn, and will have a concrete milking parlor... oh yeah! The second floor on top will be my living space, right above the does. The valley where we will be is absolutely beautiful. There is so much luscious vegetation for the goats to browse on and mountains to climb. It is goat heaven!
Our Management:
The does are fed a 16% sweet feed from Farmers Co Op, quality grass/alfalfa mix hay, and free choice ADM minerals. They are CDT vaccinated a month before their due date, and start getting vitamin E supplements at that time until they kid. Our kids are bottle/bucket raised on the CAE negative colostrum and milk from our does, and mixed with whole cows milk if needed. We put Calf Pro, a coccidiostat, in their milk starting when they are a week old, and they have free choice of grain. They get their first CDT when they are tattooed and a booster a month later. Our bucks are fed a medicated feed with ammonium chloride, hay, and minerals free choice. We only deworm as needed, and that is not very often, but our kids are preventitively treated with DiMethox to prevent coccidosis.
New to our Breeding Program:
In 2018 we invested in artificial insemination for our best does. After attending the national show, we decided to take advantage of the extensive, well bred genetics the dairy goat world has to offer. Some of the sires we chose were Iron-Rod Supersonic, Missdee's Nilan, and Goodwoods James to name a few. We are so excited to finally have our first AI kids born this year, and are confident they will be competitive in the show ring. Kids for sale can be seen in the Planned Breedings page in the "Availability" section. We price kids more than fairly on what we believe that kid is worth. Newer to our program, the AI kids are, of course, priced higher because of the higher quality of the sires. The first fresheners were all bred to our buck, Skybirds Bandit, and the Nubians were bred to Valley Ridge Masondixon. We price the kids out of first fresheners the lowest because the dams are not yet seen to their full potential, but all of our does have quality genetics behind them.
Feel free to contact Rachael with any questions or kid reservations at:
240-812-2077
skybirdacres@gmail.com
A beautiful view from the property in Rosedale, WV, Skybird's future home.
