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Welcome to Platte Valley Goats located in the Platte River Valley in Central
Nebraska. The Platte River historically has the distinction of
being
"a foot deep and a mile wide," and is now associated with the Sandhill Crane bi-annual migration. Thousands of
crane watchers pass through our area every year and we get a
front row seat to watch both birds and watchers
from our goats pens!
Our goat herd started
over 20 years ago with a 4-H project, an Alpine doe bred to the
only
purebred buck nearby, which happened to be a LaMancha. We
started our search for a better quality goat with
a subscription to United Caprine News. The ad that caught my eye
was an outstanding rear view of four LaManchas:
The South-Fork LaMancha herd located only a day's drive away in
Lyons,
Colorado. I picked out a buck on-line
and we drove out to pick him up. When we arrived Marilou Webb
gave us the tour and she had a doe that took
my breath away: SGCH Cash-Farm Truffles. Truffles is still one
of the
most smoothly blended does I have ever seen.
Truffles had a Linear Appraisal score of 89 VEEE as a milking
yearling which sounded pretty good as well.
A call back home to Marty, and Truffles was my Mother's Day
present that year. Marilou had another small
doe she let us take home to keep Truffles company, South-Fork Zena. So we drove out for one buck and came
back with a very nice starter herd.
Our
goal is to breed structurally correct LaManchas with outstanding
milking ability, but we also very much appreciate a beautiful
smoothly blended goat to look at as well. We pay close attention
to feet and legs. We don't like having to do corrective or
frequent hoof trimming and we don't want our customers to have
to do that either.
Our entire herd is tested CAE
and Johnes negative
and we try to test annually. Kids are pulled at birth and we
prefer the
kid have no contact with the dam at birth. Kids are raised on
heat-treated colostrum and pasteurized milk until 12 weeks
of age. Prairie hay and a pelleted complete ration are
introduced in the first few weeks.
We register under 2 herd names: Platte Valley and Meadowlark
with the majority of the animals registered under the family
membership Platte Valley. A few animals descended from one of my
personal favorite does are registered under an individual
membership herd name Meadowlark
2024 was a landmark year! The
2022 ADGA Top Ten LaMancha Breed Leader list was finally
posted (2 years after the fact) and we discovered our FIRST doe
to make the list debuted at #2. Platte Valley Cherry Coke was a
doe we sold in 2021 to Deb Macke, Raintree-Calico Dairy Goats in
Wisconsin. Cherry milked an amazing 3960 pounds of milk in 2022.
Congratulations and a huge thank you to Deb Macke for getting
this doe on the list! We have been on O/S (owner-sampler) milk
test for many years but switched to standard DHIR testing in
2022 when we thought we had some does that might make the list
sometime in the near future (Owner-Samper testing is not allowed
for any of the Top Ten, Superior Genetics or Elite doe awards).
We really wanted to throw a party for this accomplishment, but
the list is 2 years in the past, we no longer own the doe and
the excitement we have about this is hard to explain to anyone
not in the goat world.
Around the same time, ADGA released the
2024 Elite Doe list and we had our first does earn their
"Elite" status (Does designated "Elite" are in the top 5% of
their breed nationally). Platte Valley MHK Bricksie, Meadowlark
RCBJ Seaduction and Platte Valley Glorianna (now in another
herd) all made "Elite" status. We are excited to watch these
does mature.
On the show side of things,
Legend of Zelda earned 2 legs towards her permanent championship
along with a Best in Show win. Newly minted "Elite" doe Seaduction was undefeated in yearling classes at 6 shows. We
also brought home a new herd sire, Panaceas Patent Pending
(thank you to Levi Campbell for this beautiful buck), and we
will be using our own new Jr. Herd sire Luigi (A.I. breeding of
"Elite" Bricksie X Lucky*Star's Lugosi) who is a tremendously
powerful and correct young buck.
Please take a look around our website and let us know if you see
something you like! |
