If you've been following this blog for any length of time you already know that about 4 years ago I sold my herd down to 1 Oberhasli and a few young Nigerians because my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. 

I felt like I needed to sell the milkers to make it easier on my hubby who, when I was at the hospital with my daughter, was left holding down the fort at home with all the animals, a fulltime job and of course, our other two children who were homeschooled at the time.  

When I sold these goats I let 2 go that under ordinary circumstances never would have left. 

1 was our "poster child" (the one pictured on the header of our blog) SG/AR Nizhoni's Joie de Vivre*D/*M

who was possibly one of the best goats I've ever owned and a really good milker. 

The other, was her daughter, CBF TD Kokoro Kiseki 2*D. 

Possible one of the best breedings we ever did here.  Koko was one of triplets. 2 does and a buck. 

The buck is a herdsire here in NM, the other doe, CBF TD Pepper is milking (now for nearly 2 years)

at another herd and Koko went to AZ with her dam.  I had always held out hope I could get a kid 

back from one of them but it never seemed to really work - either the breeding was too close to what I had, I didn't have the money (or the time to go to AZ) or something. 

Due to a very generous offer by Koko's current owner, Lysa Roman of Lazy R Ranch, we are going to bring back a Koko buck kid - Lazy R Ranch Kosuke.  He was one of quads 3 does and 1 buck. Sire is Busy Browsers Akamai.  Kosuke means Rising Sun in Japanese.  Koko's name is Japanese meaning Hand/Heart Connection and we wanted to kind of hold on to that theme.  

This little guy who looks an awful lot like his gorgeous momma was born late January and should be arriving here some time in late March/early April. 

This has been a crazy busy year for us here at CBF Nigerians.  We are no longer JUST a Goat farm or even Hobby Farmers really.  We have added bees, had a huge garden and for the first time since we moved here 10 years ago, we had a bumper crop of fruit from our trees.  I think I had no idea what I was in for this past year! And while I'm still mainly a goat person it was satisfying to see us roll a little closer to becoming a little more self sustaining!  I don't like that I was sooooo busy I had no time to post and update on our blog.

This was our second year on DHI which has been a long time goal of mine since we got our first goats.  To date we've had MANY of our girls earn their stars/ARs in both registries (both in our herd and those we've sold to others)  This  past year we also participated in our first Linear Appraisal through ADGA, another long time goal.

I am so pround of our little  doe Chatty - she completely wowed me this year earning her Star/AR in both registries as a FF.  At 273 DIM she gave us 654lbs of milk 35 lbs of Butterfat and 27 lbs of Protein.  She also scored an 86 on ADGA Linears.  I just adore her sweet personality too!

Another doe of ours was doing fairly well milking (Valley Flowers Lisianthus) but she kidded in Aug and I bred her in Dec so she didn't quite get in enough time or milk to earn her stars.  I have no doubt that given more time she would have earned hers in at least AGS.  I was recently contacted by someone who had placed a deposit on another doe but had to back out last year who wanted a Bred doe - proven (more or less) to join their herd and be shown by their kids. Only 2 does here fit the bill for their request and I couldn't part with Chatty, so Lisi is heading to Colorado, bred to Flat Rocks Earl Grey for May kids. I hope she does really well for them.

This year we were able to work off Breeding fees to use on a few of our does. The Buck we chose is a beautiful, well built buck from Hill Country - MCH/CH Hill Country DAX Stitch *S.  Stitch is sire to our Lily and Grandsire to Lisi and is now bred to Chatty, Dickory, and Marina.  We are so excited for kidding season!!!!!!  We hadn't planned on having a buck but we were also presented with a deal we couldn't pass up - a Buck for 8 scarves (Thanks Flat Rock TX herd! - Sunni Milligan) We jumped on it and brought him in and bred him to the other 3 does - Lily (Obviously we couldn't breed her to her dad!), Lisi and Peachy.

As you can probably tell there are some new names in the bunch as well - so to update you all - here's how it all happened.  In May our queen bee and main milker kidded a single, double teated doe kid.  She also wasn't hardly milking and I needed the milk.  So I contacted a herd we've admired for a long time - just so happened she was willing to sell us Seldom Herd Dickory - daughter of a long admired doe, and sister to a doe who had beat us at Quad two years ago with the doe I was looking to replace.  We jumped and we are eagerly awaiting her first kids around March 1.

Lily is another doe we view as a gift! Christine at Valley Flowers allowed us to have her in exchange for working on her website which we are doing currently after having some serious computer problems for several months.  (Yes, we will get it done!!!!!) Lily is about the sweetest doe (besides Chatty) and pretty to boot - daughter of Stitch and we are looking forward to her first kids in March as well.

Well, that's about the long story short and I am hoping that we can continute to update this Blog more often.
Thanks for being patient with us and checking back with us!