Adopt-a-Goat

The p.e.a.c.h. Community Farm is home to a small herd of dairy goats. The plan for the farm includes setting up rotational, managed grazing (or browsing) pasture for the goats (and some chickens) to share. In addition, the plan calls for the construction of licensed facilities for the production and sale of raw goat milk and cheese. This will include increasing the herd from its current number of seven to upwards of twenty-five goats. The revenue potential from our goat dairy will go a long way towards making the p.e.a.c.h. Community Farms and Gardens project self-sustaining... but it will be a long, difficult journey to get there.

If you would like to support our efforts to develop the goat dairy, we have a special "Adopt-a-Goat" fundraising campaign.

For $25 per goat per year, you can become a virtual (and sometimes not so virtual) goatherd along with Chrys, our farm manager. In return, you'll be able to monitor the "Goat Blog" and keep tabs on your adopted goat(s). You'll also be able to come and visit the farm and hang out with your goat(s).  We'll make sure all you virtual goatherds get special treatment once the goat dairy is up and running too.

Couple things to keep in mind: You can adopt one or more goats. Also, come spring, there will be baby goats. Do you know what that means besides cuteness beyond reason? It means there will be more goats to adopt. You could adopt a whole housefull without ever having one goat berry to clean up.

Here are names and descriptions of the members of the herd now:

Moondance-- Moondance is a 4 year-old pure-bred Toggenburg nanny goat purchased from a breeder in Coeur D'Alene in 2006. She can produce over a gallon of sweet, rich goat milk per day. Moondance, and her ancestors, have been companions to farmers for a very long time since Toggenburg goats, also known as Swiss Browns, are the oldest known dairy breed of goats. She is a gentle spirit and has a quiet inner strength that allows her to be the alpha goat without being too much of a bully.
Adopt Moondance

Miracle-- Miracle is Moondance's offspring. She'll be 2 years-old this coming spring. She's a very affectionate doe and a good producer. Miracle has nice horns too.
Adopt Miracle

Marigold-- Marigold is Miracle's almost twin sister. Both sisters are a little darker than their mother with Marigold being a such a rich chocolate brown it's easy to think she produces chocolate milk, but she doesn't. It's regular goat milk. Both Miracle and Marigold have beautiful curved horns. Chrys practices no painful de-horning with his goats, although Moondance was dehrned before she was purchased and some of the other goats are "polled" which is goatherd lingo for naturally hornless.
Adopt Marigold

Mazey (Short for Amazing Grace)-- Mazey is Moondance's doeling from this past spring. She is a very sweet goat and loves to be scratched under her chin. She has grown fast having had access to her mother's milk every day since her birth. She's a "polled" goat,  and a dark chocolate brown. Chrys and his daughter Lyra both consider that she has the potential to rival her mother's high milk productivity, but only time will tell. She'll have her first kid in the spring.
Adopt Mazey

Minnie-- Minnie is Lyra's pet goat. She is a pure bred Nigerian Dwarf, 2 years-old. Nigerian Dwarf goats were bred thousands of years ago in Western Africa as dairy goats. They can produce as much as a gallon a day while being about a third the size of a regular goat. Minnie comes from show goat lines. Show goat breeders tend to select for other qualities than high milk production, so Minnie isn't really called upon to be a dairy goat, since she produces too little. But when she is "fresh" (meaning she's giving lots of as a new mother) her milk is extra rich and sweet; great creamer for Chrys' morning coffee when it's available.
Adopt Minnie

Magic-- Magic is a great big 3 year-old Billy Goat. He is the "herd sire" meaning he's called upon to be the father of all new goats in the herd. His mom, Emma, was an Alpine/Toggenburg cross and his dad was a pure-bred Nubian buck. Magic is also polled (naturally hornless). He is really just a big puppy dog, but sometimes he can't help but try to challenge Chrys for herd dominance. It's instinctual. Then he calms down again. He gets excited when the girls go into heat in the fall. He's really beside himself for a while, but then he calms down again. He likes to do fun Billy Goat things like peeing on his own face. He's also very smelly (as you might imagine). Magic is lucky (and so are the girls) that Chrys allows him to be with the does most of the time. This reduces stress in the herd as it mimics how a goat herd would be in the wild. Many goatherds separate the billy goats. Both boys and girls are not as happy being separated.
Adopt Magic

Mr. Misty-- Misty is a wether (that's goatherd lingo for a male goat that lost his masculinity somewhere along the way). Mr. Misty is the offspring of Magic and Minnie. He's named after the torrential cloudburst that let loose just at the moment he was born that filled the barn with mist (he would have been named Monsoon, but Chrys couldn't think of the word in the heat of the moment, although that was the image he had in mind. Maybe his name should be Mr. Misty Monsoon). Anyway, he'll be two years old this coming spring. He's slightly larger than his Nigerian Dwarf mother, but much smaller than Magic. He was bottle fed as a baby and therefore he's very gentle and likes human attention. Since he's a wether, he doesn't stink like most billy goats (even Magic is pretty mild, but that's just Chrys' opinion. Others don't always agree with him on that point). Chrys almost sold Mr. Misty at a p.e.a.c.h. fund-raising auction because he couldn't think of why to keep him (isn't a breeder, can't give milk, eats a fair share of the feed), but he realized that Mr. Misty is a perfect "petting" goat for the school children who will be visiting the farm by the hundreds. So, Mr. Misty has a job and will stay. Happy ending.
Adopt Mr. Misty Monsoon