DeLuna Acres, LLC

Keeping with the yearly ritual, September marks the end of our farm’s 9th Anniversary and we again capture the highs and lows as a way of sharing the positives and not so positives with our follower base. It also allows us to evaluate progress from years past. This year was more challenging than years past. Unlike last year, our dairy business struggled with sales. We were not alone as other dairies we talked to experienced similar slow-down in sales. In June we discontinued selling in Cliff’s Market as they struggled to sell product. McIntyre Farms continues to sell our cheeses and we are thankful for their on-going commitment. We remain committed to our loyal customers and weather the slower times in hopes that things pick up in the coming year. Our self-serve refrigerator continues to be a Godsend as it allows 24 hour access to our milk and cheese and frees us up from having to schedule pickups.

Our livestock sales did well this year, especially buck kids that were sold before they were born to the pack goat community. In years past, selling buck kids was always a challenge, now Lamanchas are the craze with packers and we already have reservations in-place for next year to place more pack goat kids !!! 

We ended up breeding 21 does and milked through (i.e., did not breed) 8 does which provided a reduced but steady supply of fresh milk throughout the winter months. Our overall births were up from last year. The 21 does delivered 46 kids (19 doe kids, 27 buck kids). Again, we were so thankful to the packgoat community for “cleaning us out” of buck kids within 2-3 weeks of birth. Kidding season always produces its challenges and this year was no different. Sadly we lost Monique to a torn uterus as we worked hard to extract a HUGE, single  buck kid from her. Fortunately her boy survived and is now retained in our herd as a herd sire. In December we lost Solarus and in February we lost Moon. We started our herd in 2016 with these girls and it was devastating to say goodbye to them. Loss is always the hardest part of the job and it never gets easier. 

We had a reduced show schedule this year in large part due to lack of farm coverage, only attending 5 shows total. We normally attend 6-8 shows a year. That said, we were still pleased with the overall results: 17 class wins, 6 Reserve Grand Champion (RCH) placings, 6 Grand Champion (GCH) placings and 2 Best in Breed. The highlight happened at our last show of the year where DeLuna Nia went GCH, finishing her permanent championship. She can now be referred to as GCH DeLuna Nia 2*M (90 VEEE). So proud of this girl !!!!

In addition to the ~45 goats, the farm still has the 3 llamas that provide excellent predator control, Scarlett and Bella, the farm’s standard poodles, Estelle, the barn cat that keeps mice at bay,  APPI our 11 yo Appaloosa, Tophat, our 15 yo Paint-Quarter Horse and Blaze, our 11 yo Norwegian Fjord. The peacocks continue to come and go and this year we were surprised to see 6 baby peacocks wandering around the property. They always provide plenty of entertainment. 

Overall it was a good year and we continue to retain great farm help. Fingers crossed this continues to be a recurring theme, year-over-year.

We are fortunate and thankful in so many ways for all the friends and mentors we’ve made along the way. Without their support, we’d never have made it this far.  Onward to Year 10 !!!!

September marks the end of our farm’s 8th Anniversary. Every year we try to capture the highs and lows as a way of sharing the positives and not so positives with our follower base. It also allows us to evaluate progress from years past. Overall we had a very good year. Our dairy business has really taken off with demand significantly exceeding supply. Our two retail stores, Cliff’s Market and McIntyre Farms continue to consume large quantities of milk and cheese with the rest going to our loyal farm customers through direct sales. This year we installed a self serve refrigerator which has been a Godsend scheduling wise. No longer do we need to publish farm hours, customers have access 24 hours a day !!!

Our livestock sales continue to be down from years past and seems to be a common theme among all breeders throughout the country therefore we scaled back on does bred to reduce the number of kids we’d need to sell in the spring. We ended up breeding 17 does and milked through 11 does which provided a reduced but steady supply of fresh milk throughout the winter months. This coming year we intend to limit our breedings again and milk as many does through as feasibility possible. 

Kidding season went much smoother than expected with 36 kids born. We had another “doe year” (more doe kids than buck kids) which put a HUGE smile on our faces. The downside is deciding which kids get to stay while still maintaining a reasonable overall herd size. As of this date we retained two buck kids as future herd sires and 10 doe kids. We may cut some of the doe kids as they mature but for now, they get to stay. We peaked at a herd size of 83 after kidding season and have managed to get it back down to 45 which is a manageable number. The downside is that some of the goats we started the farm with are now geriatrics and will live out their lives in retirement as they’ve more than earned it. We did experience our lowest moment in February, losing our herd queen, Sybella shortly after kidding to a torn uterus. Fortunately Sybella blessed us with 2 doe kids that we plan to retain as well as Penella, her doe kid from the 2022 Breeding Program. We are hopeful they will carry on her legacy. On a more positive note, this was first year doing Artificial Insemination (AI) Breedings with an overall success rate of 50%, somewhat expected when first starting out. We were able to retain 3 kids out of this year’s AI Breeding, introducing new genetics into the herd. 

We had a reduced show schedule this year in large part due to lack of farm coverage. We normally attend 6-8 shows a year, this year we only were able to attend 4. That said, we were still pleased with the overall results: 25 class wins, 5 Reserve Grand Champion placings, 6 Grand Champion placings, 2 Best in Breed and 1 Best in Show. Next year we plan to make the long haul to Nebraska for the 2025 ADGA National Championship show. 

In addition to the ~45 goats, the farm still has 3 llamas, providing excellent predator control, Scarlett and Bella, the farm’s standard poodles, Estelle, the barn cat that keeps mice at bay,  APPI our 10 yo Appaloosa, Tophat, our 14 yo Paint Quarter Horse and Blaze, our 10 yo Norwegian Fjord and 2 Peacocks which recently arrived totally unannounced and deciding to make this their new home.  Adding to the fun, we recently finished construction on a horse riding arena that frequently gets used as an agility course for the 3 boys. Sure beats having to load them in the trailer, drive to the trails, unload, ride, reload etc etc …. Now it’s a quick walk from the pasture to the arena !!!!

It’s been a good year and we continue to retain great farm help with minimal turnover. Fingers crossed this continues to be a recurring theme. 

We are fortunate and thankful in so many ways for all the friends and mentors we’ve made along the way. Without their support, we’d never have made it this far.  Onward to Year 9 !!!!

Another clean herd test year !!!! Pleased to post these results.

September marks the end of our farm’s 7th year in existence and keeping with tradition, we capture the highs and lows experienced in this yearly anniversary posting. Overall this was a much better year than last due to the impact COVID placed on all of us. The good news is that our dairy business has really taken off with demand often exceeding supply. Our two retail stores, Cliff’s Market and McIntyre Farms consume a large supply of our milk and cheese with the rest going to our loyal, recurring farm customers. Unlike in years past, we did not have to dispose of any milk thanks to the continuous demand !!! The bad news was kids sales which has been a low point for the majority of goat breeders this year. Anticipating a bad year, we intentionally scaled back on breedings to limit the number of kids born and made the decision to milk a number of our older does through rather than breeding them. This gave us the added benefit of having a recurring milk supply throughout the winter months when goat milk is hard to find. This year we will do the same and increase the number of does milking through to maintain a sufficient milk supply for our customer base.

Our herd continues to mature from the bottle babies that jump-started us back in 2016 to a herd size of ~45 today. In addition to the goats, the farm still has the 4 llamas that provide excellent predator control, Scarlett and Bella, the farm’s standard poodles, Estelle, the barn cat that keeps the mouse population in check,  APPI our 9 yo Appaloosa Gelding and the 2 newest (horse) additions, Tophat, a 13 yo Paint Quarter Horse and Blaze, a 9 yo Norwegian Fjord. Lots of mouths to feed and care for !!!

This coming year we will breed 20 does and milk through 11-12 does. We will again leverage our existing 5 herd sires in addition to our newest herd sire, Kastdemur’s Roatan. We plan to AI 5 does with some really exciting semen recently acquired. And we plan to collect all our bucks this year, making their semen available to other breeders. We’ve had a number of requests for buck semen the past 2 years and never found the time to collect them.

2023 was another great year in the show ring.  We scaled back a bit on shows attended due to the National Show being held this year in Oregon that committed us to a week long stay. We still were able to participate in 5 shows  garnering  22 class wins, 7 Grand Champions, 6 Reserve Grand Champions, 3 Best in Breed and 2 Best in Show placings. 

For the first year since we started the farm, hiring and retaining good farm help has not been an issue. Having a stable workforce is such a blessing and allows us to accomplish other tasks that help to grow the farm. May this trend continue in the coming years.

We are fortunate and thankful in so many ways for all the friends and mentors we’ve made along the way. Without their support, we’d never have made it this far.  Onward to another prosperous year !!!

Another clean herd year on CAE, Brucellosis and TB !!!

Our 2023 Breeding List is now available and can be found on the home page of this site under the “Breeding Program” tab.

September concludes our farm’s 6th anniversary and keeping with tradition, we capture the highs and lows experienced in this yearly anniversary posting. 2021/22 was much better than the previous year dealing with the setbacks caused by COVID and loss of some senior does in our herd.

Our herd continues to mature from the bottle babies that jump-started us back in 2016 to a herd size of ~37 today. In addition to the goats, the farm includes 5 llamas for predator control, Scarlett and Bella, the farm’s standard poodles, Estelle, the barn cat and the newest arrival, APPI an 8 yo Appaloosa gelding. Lots of mouths to feed !!

Breeding season provided challenges in large part due to the lack of farm help. This year we bred 22 does delivering 48 kids in March and April. And to say it was a “buck dominant” year would be an understatement. Of the 48 kids born, 38 were bucks making it impossible to fill doe kid reservations. Fortunately most customers opted to roll their reservation(s) forward; fingers crossed that 2023 will produce an ample supply of doe kids. We were only able to retain 5 doe kids from this year’s program of which 4 were sired by Rockin-CB KMM Naga, our herdsire addition from last year out of the 2021 National Champion, SGCH Rockin-CB RZ Haiku. We’re excited got see how these kids develop.

2022 was another great year in the show ring.  We participated in 6 sanctioned shows including the CDA Fuzzy Show (Coeur d’Alene, ID), Syringa (Boise), NEWDGA (Spokane, UT), the Montana State Fair (Great Falls), the Union County Fair (LaGrande, OR) and the Twin Falls Fair (Filer, ID). Our results included 27 class wins, 9 Grand Champions, 9 Reserve Grand Champions, 4 Best in Breed and 1 Best in Show. 

Next month kicks off our annual breeding program with 15 does slated for breeding, 7 fewer than our previous year. We plan for the first time to milk through 13 does providing milk throughout the winter months for our customers and continued cheese production. This was a very good year for our dairy business with continual demand for our milk and cheese products. We also established 2 retail presences to sell our dairy products, McIntyre Pastures and Cliff’s Country Market, both located on Caldwell, ID. 

We are fortunate and thankful in so many ways for all the friends and mentors we’ve made along the way. Without their support, we’d never have made it this far.  

The 2021 ADGA Elite Doe List has been released and these girls from our herd once again are on it for the second year in a row: Tempo HT Jasper and Sweet Deseret’s SFM Heckofa. Does designated Elite are in the top 5% of their breed nationally, an incredible accomplishment !!

September marks our farm’s 5th anniversary and keeping with tradition, we always capture the highs and lows experienced in our yearly anniversary posting. While 2020 was an extremely strange year, 2021 showed remarkable recovery. Shows were no longer cancelled due to COVID and a limited number of LA Appraisals were conducted across the country, sadly we were not fortunate to have a scheduled appraisal, missing our second year in a row. Appraisals provide critical data we use in our breeding program and herd growth, maybe next year.

Our herd continues to mature from a few bottle babies that jump-started us back in 2016 to a herd size of ~35 today. This past year was our largest breeding program to-date, producing 53 kids and the second year in a row we didn’t have a “buck dominant” year – 22 doe kids, 31 buck kids born. We were able to retain 11 doe kids for our herd expansion and are really excited at their development, to-date. Another exciting addition is our new herd sire we acquired from Cindy Silva at Rockin-CB,  Rockin-CB KMM Naga. Naga’s pedigree is staggering starting with his dam, SGCH Rockin-CB RZ Haiku, the 2021 National Grand Champion and his sire, *B Kastdemur’s Modern Man from the 2019 National Reserve Grand Champion, SGCH Kastdemur’s Vintage. We cannot wait to leverage Naga in our breeding program.

In 2021 we focused heavily showing our juniors vs. milkers to help gauge their development and we were not disappointed with the results. We participated in 6 sanctioned shows including the Syringa (Boise), Cache Valley (Logan, UT), BDGA (Hamilton, MT), Montana State Fair (Great Falls), Union County Fair (LaGrande, OR) and the Twin Falls Fair (Filer, ID). Our results included 30 class wins, 9 Grand Champions, 9 Reserve Grand Champions, and 3 Best in Show. 

Sadly the accomplishments did not come without setbacks. In June we lost 2 of our best senior does, Lucky*Star’s TD Kadara and Huricane-PM Golden Sai, both to a rapid and consuming case of mastitis. Kadara’s year started off with a bang when she milked 15# on her first milk test. Similar to Kadara, Sai, a first freshener had an outstanding junior show season and we anticipated strong show results as a senior, sadly that was not to be. We are fortunate that both does provided us with a doe kid we’ve retained to carry on the genetics. Kadara blessed us with DeLuna Mirabel who managed to secure her championship dry leg at the Syringa show and Sai blessed us with DeLuna Naimah who had a Grand Championship placing at the Twin Falls Fair. We are hopeful these girls will carry on their dam’s legacies.

Next month kicks off our annual breeding program with 23 does slated for breeding, 8 of those being first fresheners. It will be another crazy March and April as kids begin to arrive and inhale milk from lambar buckets as quickly as they’re filled. Fortunately we get a few down months in the winter to rest and re-charge before the crazy season starts up again.

We are fortunate and thankful in so many ways for all the friends and mentors we’ve made along the way. Without their support, we’d never have made it this far.  Onward to year #6.