"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
Breeding Quality and Competitive Alpine Dairy Goats
Frederick, MD
Hello and welcome to Skybird Acres. We are a small family run farm in Frederick, MD. We have been breeding Alpines and Nubians for six years. Our farm started with Nubians, but we are now shifting our focus to the Alpines. We attend local shows in Maryland and neighboring states, and attended our first ADGA national show in 2018 placing 11th and 14th in the two year old and aged doe classes respectively. We specifically breed for strong, sturdy does that easily fill the milk bucket.
We purposefully keep our herd size to a minimum, keeping only from 10-15 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. The does are fed a 16% sweet feed from Farmers Co Op, quality grass hay, and free choice minerals. They are CDT vaccinated a month before their due date, and start getting vitamin E supplements at that time. Our kids are bottle/bucket raised on the CAE negative milk from our does, and whole cows milk if needed, and they have free choice of 22% calf starter until they are three months; they get their first CDT when they are tattooed and a booster a month later. Our bucks are fed a medicated meat goat feed with ammonium chloride and hay and minerals free choice. Due to the efforts we make our goats are healthy and are not easily stressed.
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. The kids that we do not retain 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
We purposefully keep our herd size to a minimum, keeping only from 10-15 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. The does are fed a 16% sweet feed from Farmers Co Op, quality grass hay, and free choice minerals. They are CDT vaccinated a month before their due date, and start getting vitamin E supplements at that time. Our kids are bottle/bucket raised on the CAE negative milk from our does, and whole cows milk if needed, and they have free choice of 22% calf starter until they are three months; they get their first CDT when they are tattooed and a booster a month later. Our bucks are fed a medicated meat goat feed with ammonium chloride and hay and minerals free choice. Due to the efforts we make our goats are healthy and are not easily stressed.
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. The kids that we do not retain 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
