Home of Calico Acres - Calico Fields - Calico Lane - Calico Patch
Welcome to Raintree Dairy Goats, home of
Larry, Deb and Sharla Macke and James, Michael and Samantha Nagel. Our farm is
located on 40 acres in the north woods of Price County in NW Wisconsin. Along
with our dairy goats we also have a small herd of Angus
beef cattle and
raise enough hay for our livestock. Our dairy goat herd consists primarily of Purebred LaManchas with
just a few Americans. Sharla's herd name is Calico Acres;
James' is Calico Fields; Michael's is Calico Lane and Samantha's is Calico Patch.
We have been raising dairy goats since 1985 when we started with a pair of
grade Alpine does as a 4-H project. Over the last nearly 25 years we've been
involved in all aspects of the industry including 5 years as a commercial goat
dairy. We first added the LaManchas to our herd when we were purchasing animals
to build up our commercial herd. A shortage of dairy does led us to SW Wisconsin
where we found a lovely herd of very well-cared for grade LaManchas. It was
there that we found "Jorja" and her herdmates. Nineteen LaManchas came home with
us that day and so began our love affair with this short-eared breed. Living way
up north with the dairy markets in the south made it very difficult to market
milk and in 1993 we made the decision to focus our energies on developing a
select herd of breeding stock and show animals. The commercial does were
exported to a dairy in Canada and what remained was
the basis of our LaManchas
of today.
When our son, Kevin, was old enough for 4-H he wanted a top quality purebred LaMancha to start with and we looked to Haute Caprine for our first purebred doe. You can still find the influence that Haute Caprine animals had on our herd in the pedigrees both past and present.
We currently milk a herd of approximately 20 show quality does. We try to show at as many shows as our schedule will permit while still allowing us to keep a working farm going. Our herd is linear appraised annually and we are on DHIR milk test. Being dairy farmers, we believe that those show does should still be able to milk and our current rolling herd average at the end of 2009 is 3014M 127F 93P.
We are very proud of our herd's accomplishments but we still continually strive
for
improvement. Over the past few years we have added genetics from
South-Fork LaManchas, Altrece, Kastdemur's, Heart-Mt., Little Orchard, Tempo,
Glen-Mythos, Forrest-Pride, Barnowl
and Shady Lawn. Our appreciation goes out to them all for allowing us to add
such lovely animals to our herd. We also thank them as well as Lynn Fleming of Lynnhaven
Nubians, Pete Snyder of Brookwood LaManchas and Kelly Nielsen of Here-Be-Goats for sharing their beautiful
photos for our website. Take a few minutes to visit each of these herds and see
what they have contributed to the LaMancha breed.
Join us now for a visit to Raintree Dairy Goats. Let us know if you see something you like or have any questions.
WELCOME!!
Last updated 08/04/2010
