About The Herd
Welcome to Cottonwood Hollow!
We're super excited that you're here and we look forward to sharing with you who we are and what we do!
We are a small homestead located on a beautiful wooded acreage, brimming with majestic old Cottonwoods, in South Central Kansas that focuses on raising our ADGA/AGS registered Nigerian Dwarf goats and growing our farm in a holistic manner that is sustainable and regenerative for the goats and our family.
Our focus is stewardship and we consider it an honor and a blessing to be care takers of this little farm and all of our animals.
Our kids are dam raised and our goals are to increase and excel in milk production while also growing healthy, sweetly socialized, structurally correct, and well-nourished goats in the process.
We have found that everyone who raises goats has a different philosophy when it comes to herd management. We are constantly striving to improve our breedings and management practices through cultivating relationships, in depth study, observation, asking lots of questions, and nutritional need assessments. Every season of goat herd management is different! We learn something new each and every season and by no means are we experts. Isn't that a relief? You can be new to goat ownership and breeding or a seasoned pro and still experience new situations within your herd that inspire change, tug at your heart, and test your knowledge and skill set.
We apply this same approach to not just our goats but all other areas of our farm and family life as well.
Originally, the plan was, after much research on dairy breeds...to raise Nigerians just for fun!
Because who can resist their playful personalities, abundant color combinations, and darling size?
Goat milk for our family would be the bonus!
As the years have passed though, we wanted to improve our genetics, conformation in body structure, and milk production.
We are passionate about creating nutritious food on our little farm and our goat herd is a big part of that process! We love our goats and all of the fresh dairy that is available to us through them and that inspires us to maintain as healthy of a herd as we can while also building our foundation in milk production. Nigerians are especially known for their wonderfully rich butterfat.
They have the finest quality milk of all of the goat breeds. Are world renowned for their cheeses. And goat milk is easier to digest than cow milk making it an especially great choice for babies, children, and those who may have an intolerance or allergy to cow milk.
We still have our original girls, but have since worked hard to find and build from the best genetics that were the most compatible with our goals, and reach out to those breeders. We love what we do and are taking our time building our overall foundation.
Some of the questions we ask ourselves as breeders are:
What do we value?
How is that reflected in our lives and on our farm?
How can we continue to improve in our stewardship?
How can we pass that along to you, the potential buyer?
We participate in 305 day DHI milk testing (with both registries) and ADGA linear appraisals, as well as AGS classifications.
Our herd is tested and is negative for CAE, CL and Johne's Disease and has been since we brought our first goat girls home.
***
We have a few companies that we love and recommend supporting!
Fir Meadows
Modesto Milling
Azure Standard
We also really appreciate our local farmers who work so hard to grow the Brome hay, Alfalfa, and Oat Straw that we need.
*We also would like to mention that we are immensely blessed and thankful to know and work with Tommy, Jessica, and Logan Mather at Southern Grace, The entire Smits family at D and L Meadows, and Jill Maple at Sinai Thunder.
They are not only mentors and leaders in this industry but dear friends!*