High in butter-fat, rich in personality!
This super-milky breed of goat has been less of a necessity for our farm, but more of a welcome accessory. Excellent at foraging, sweet natured, clever, and a milk cow in a goat's body, the Nigerian will always have a place on our farm! While we are not focused on showing our goats, we do keep a close eye on those performance herds, milk tests and stars, LA scores, and more. Some of our goats are good candidates for those programs, while others are not. That said, we do milk our goats and have some pretty easy benchmarks that our herd must meet: they must be milkable (not dancing and throwing a tantrum on the milkstand), they must give an adequate volume of milk at weaning time (1 pint for a first freshener, 3 pints for a seasoned doe), and they must stay in milk if a milking or two are skipped. If those criteria cannot be met, then the goat cannot carry on in our program. Kidding unassisted within reason and dam raising ability is also a priority for us. We do not pull kids to bottle feed. Body conformation and strong, desirable udder structure are a serious consideration as well. We try to stay away from the ultra-short goat and try to breed for the higher end of the height for Nigerians because let's be honest... shorties are hard to milk by hand or by machine! Teats need to be easy to grasp and need to fit well into a machine suction cup. Foraging and being able to be thrifty on pasture are important to us, but we do supplement feed and hay during kidding season. Parasite resistance is important to us and we only deworm as needed, but kids will always be dewormed as a precaution before they go to their new homes. All kids will be disbudded by our vet and have their 1st and 2nd CDT vaccine before they leave. Though we do not currently do health testing for CAE, CL, and Johnes, we plan to do so before the 2026 kidding season. We wean at 8 weeks and band bucklings at that time. We also eat our goats! Nigerian meat may not be as tender and mild-flavored as Boer goat meat, but it's still a very good choice! Extra bucklings that don't sell as wethers will be welcomed into our freezer! With the goat market saturated and valuable goats from high-end programs becoming more and more difficult to move, we see it as an opportunity to feed our family and add another purpose to our goat program!
Our Herd Sires
Our bucks both come from milky lines, average LA scores in their pedigrees are in the 80's, and both are sweet and gentle natured.
Ricketts 4E Prince Aladdin, aka "Princie"
We absolutely adore this buck! Though he was extremely shy and fearful when he first came here, with a lot of patience and plenty of treats, he eventually came around. Now he's just putty in your hands when you pet him! We are actively retaining his daughters from our 2025 kidding season and seeing how they freshen. Prince is on the tall-end of the Nigerian spectrum, which is what we want because several of our dams are too short and difficult to milk. We are hoping that Prince can add both height and depth to our herd and we will see how the milk production turns out in his daughters as well! Prince is also a meaty buck. Since we do eat our extra goats, having some bucklings with some extra bulk on them is a plus in our eyes!
KD Kids Fueled with Topaz
Topaz is our up and coming breeding buck. He carries a very rich pedigree full of milky bucks and does, nice LA scores, and lots of titles! He carries some Old Mountain Farm genetics as well. Topaz is the sweetest, friendliest little guy you'll ever meet! He's never known a stranger. We're excited to be using him this fall for our 2026 spring kidding season!
Merrytale RP Red Velvet
Red is our heart goat. The only one we'll allow here with a ballooned udder on the left side, she is a MILKY girl! The 2025 season was her first kidding season on the farm and the first time that she had ever been milked. She did well with very little resistance and man, does she produce! She is also one of our sweetest, in your pocket goats on our farm. This happy girl smiles when she looks at you! Because kidding-ease is a must on our farm, we had just sat down for dinner and saw on camera that Red had laid down, started pushing and had both twins out in under 5 minutes unassisted. That's one more thing to love about this goat! We have retained two of her daughters out of Prince to freshen for 2026/2027 and are eagerly awaiting her two older daughters (Demi and Goldilocks) to freshen in 2026.
Dill's FFM Fallen Angel
Angel is another super sweet, friendly, pocket goat. She's also our most elegant as far as her conformation. Should she ever have an LA done, she should score well! Though her first freshening was disappointing not because she didn't produce well, but because she didn't stay in milk, she will be allowed another shot in 2026 before she might become available for someone else's program that needs some goats with good conformation.
Sweet Stream's Hot Spell
Spell was a very shy and fearful girl when she first came to our farm. I had to spend a lot of time earning her trust. But once I did, she was 100% your goat. She had her first freshening on our farm and showed us a very pretty FF udder. At weaning, she stayed in milk and produced well! We retained both of her doelings out of Princie in 2025 to grow out and freshen for 2026/2027.
Half-Pint Goats Goldilocks
Goldilocks is just as sweet and friendly as her mama, Red. She will be having her first freshening in 2026.
Half-Pint Goats Demi Lovato
Demi is just as sweet and friendly as her mama, Red. She will be having her first freshening in 2026.
KD Kids Sophie Rain
Sophie is another addition from KD Kids with some excellent milk potential! We are looking forward to her first freshening on our farm in 2026.
Texas Deep Creek Paris Hilton
Paris is another heart goat on our farm and Farmer Richard's personal favorite. Platinum blonde and sweet as pie, even though she has yet to settle, she may earn her place as a permanent pet here if she never freshens on our farm.
