Welcome to TenByAcres

Welcome to TenByAcres. We've raised egg chickens for several years but last year we decided to add some dairy goats. After much deliberation and research we brought home 3 Mini-Nubians in milk and one doeling. Let us introduce them to you:

Here is our herd queen, Rosey. She is a 4th generation and a very good milker.




Rosey gave birth to triplets in the evening of March 16, 2011 -

Here's Mary,

Martha,

& Goliath.

Both little does look like promising dairy goats while Goliath has a future as a wether.


Next is Daisy. She is a 3rd generation and also a good milker.



Daisy gave birth to twins on March 18, 2011 - a little buckling we named Buckskin (wether)

and a doeling named Buttercup.

My current favorite - Sparkle.


She is a 5th generation. She's not quite as heavy with milk production but is so well behaved on the milk stand. She is always first in line, comes in and jumps up on the stand by herself. She's also just a little taller than the others and that makes putting the milking machine under her so easy. Sparkle gave birth to triplet doelings in the early afternoon of March 14, 2011. We named them

Licorice,

Vanilla,

& Chocolate.

Licorice and Vanilla have futures as milk goats. Chocolate, our smallest doeling, is our family favorite. She's such a sweetie and very affectionate. She had a hoof problem with one of her hooves at birth and in attempting to correct it we probably made it worse. The upside is that she is very used to being handled and probably getting somewhat spoiled!

And finally, our current first freshener, Starlight (6th gen.), Sparkle's daughter.

She is gradually getting used to the milking stand and being milked. We're trying to be patient as she learns the ropes. Starlight was our first to give birth on March 12, 2011. Her kids are Ace - who shows a promising future as our next stud buck

and Moonlight - a sweet little doeling.

One thing we learned (after the fact) that you should put the dry does through the milking paces to get them used to the stand and having their udders/teats handled. If we had done that with Starlight last year, she probably wouldn't be as resistant. Truthfully, I think she was just sore from having a full udder and a little scared by not knowing what was expected. We will definitely be getting next years new milkers used to the routine early.

And the last two goats of all, we have our current stud buck, Benny. He is a 5th generation.

And the noisy wether that keeps Benny company, Breadstick Slightly Toasted - our 9 year old daughter came up with the name.

Our son, Luke, will be in charge of maintaining our site. Didn't he do a great job with the layout?