Tucked away in East Central Indiana, amongst sprawling fields of corn and soybeans you may stumble across a small farm alive with the hustle and bustle of its inhabitants. It’s a place of gardening, beekeeping, chicken tending, goat husbandry, and all things self sustaining and regenerative. Our small family of 3 has worked tirelessly for 15 years to cultivate, grow and nurture this land into a state of thriving abundance.

I can remember the first time I set eyes on this property. My husband, Mark, and I were newly married and expecting our first and only child. The realtor drove us into a pull off that was overgrown with weeds. We couldn’t pull in very far and the forest of head height weeds was a little intimidating but when we began walking what was 13 acres of overgrown, overworked, and very tired corn field, the vision of what it could be was born in both of us. It was raw land! A blank canvas that just seemed to be begging for someone to steward it back into a productive and healthy plot of land. The tree line was FULL of Mulberry Trees, it was absolutely BURSTING with this fruit bearing tree! We needed to have it and so it was ours! Mulberry Branch Farm was born!

Shortly after our daughter was born, up went the house quickly followed by a chicken coop and a barn! We could not wait to fill that barn with livestock. We started our goating journey with Boer Goats! Goats were a survivalist type livestock that could both help to nourish and shape our land while providing milk and meat to us. I had grown up with chickens and horses and never really thought of myself as a goat person. It wasn’t long after our first two Boer Does found their way to our farm that I became a bonified Crazy Goat Lady! I found a love for these small ruminants with the most unique and big personalities. We decided to migrate from the big Boer Goats to the smaller and opposite end of the goat spectrum, Nigerian Dwarf Goats!

These little goats have brightened our farm with their presence and have become a true passion for us. While the Nigerian Dwarf Goat is a dwarf breed of dairy goat, it is often underestimated in the dairy world! Did you know that Nigerian Dwarf Goats are known for producing the highest percentage of butterfat content of all the Dairy Goat Breeds. We love this breed and have become quite tied into the idea of bettering the breed through participation in ADGA Sanctioned Shows, Linear Appraisals as well as participating in DHI (Dairy Herd Improvement) Programs aimed at tracking lactations and gathering milking data on individual animals.

How does participating in performance programs better the Nigerian Dwarf Goat as a breed? I am often asked this very question when I share that our goats participate in DHI, LA, and Shows. “That’s a lot of money for not a lot of return. At first, maybe, but as the years have gone by and we’ve bred and participated I can see marked improvements in consistency of conformation, long lived and productive does, as well as a more hardy homestead goat through my participation

The key elements that these programs are looking for in dairy goats are all those qualities that lend themselves to a long living and productive animal. This is the main goal of the American Dairy Goat Associations Unified Scorecard that is used to compare and place individual animals within the Senior Doe, Junior Doe, and Buck breeding groups. This in turn also translates to their Linear Appraisal Program which main focus is to be a Sire Proving Program by scoring individual animals that can lend their scores to a cumulative data to the sires that begat them! DHI helps me to gather data on the production side of owning dairy goats. We participate in milk testing (when we can, I sometimes get too busy and forget to sample and submit milk to the lab). Milk testing is helpful in both tracking production as well as management impacts in my milking does! By sending in samples (half of the sample is morning milk and half is evening milk over a 24 hour period, milking 12 hours apart) I can see how much butterfat and protein she’s producing in her milk as well as weighing it to see if she is producing well and possibly on track to earn a Milk Star! Another wonderful measurement is an SCC or a somatic cell count which can be an early indicator of asymptomatic mastitis which is important in ample udder health in a productive dairy goat. All of these things lend me a hand in making breeding decisions to help make advantageous pairings. Hopefully the progeny from these pairings are always hoped to be hardier, thriftier, and more productive animals than their parents. While all of these offspring might be better than their dam and sire, they don’t always make the cut here making them perfect AND superior dwarf homesteading dairy goats.

Want to learn more about goat care and husbandry? Be sure to visit our YouTube Channel where we share all of our goating and homesteading adventures. Come learn with us as we share homesteading skills like chicken processing, harvesting raw honey, caring for our dairy goats, training and working with our Livestock Guardian Dogs and everything in between!

“Failure is not an end result, it’s a tool for the next experience””

— Mulberry Branch Farm - Ashley

Mulberry Branch Farm

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Location

Indiana

Contact

Mulberrybranchfarm@gmail.com