Meet the Goats

There are a plethora of reasons that I use goats milk in all of my soaps(I'll explain more in a later blog post), but the first and foremost reason being that I have dairy goats! All of the milk that I use comes straight from my does.

I own 5 La Mancha dairy goats. This breed was developed in Oregon in the 1920s. The most distinguishable characteristics of this breed is their very short ears (I call them nubs). There are two main types of ears; elf ears and gopher ears. Elf ears an approximate maximum length of two inches. Gopher ears may not exceed one inch in length. 

 Camilla is definitley one of my favorite does. She is just the sweetest thing. She also performs very well in all the shows that she is in. Her one and only vice is that she is so hard to take a picture of because she wants to be right next to you at all times.

Carmella is also an extremely sweet doe. She is actually a recorded grade which means that she is a mix of two breeds but she is registered. She is 50% La Mancha and 50% Nubian. 

 Chetana is the most stand-off ish doe that I own but she still loves a good cuddle every now and then. She also *always* seems to stick out her tongue in every picture!

These three does are expecting kids in mid June to July so be on the look out for some cute babies for sale!

Last year, I retained two doe kids both out of Camilla. Ebony and Evelyn.

  Evelyn is just like her mom, Camilla, in the aspect that she always wants to be loved on! She was quite stand-off ish until around her first birthday last month. Now she loves to be right next to you and especially loves her chin scratched!

 Ebony was also out of Camilla, however she was a bottle baby last year. She was born with very contracted tendons and was unable to walk. She lived in my house for about 3 months and then she moved out in the barn and continued her bottle feeding. She now is out in the field with the others. When we feed in the evenings, we need ti watch her because she has to be right under you so we trip over her regularly!

Sources:

http://adga.org/breed-standards/

https://lamanchas.com/lm-history.htm