Fox Trot is a small herd of registered Alpine and Saanen dairy goats located in southern middle Tennessee. We have been raising and enjoying dairy goats for over 20 years. We try to breed for an animal that is hardy, vigorous, and long lived. Our animals must be both competitive in the show ring as well as productive in the milk parlor. We use goat milk in our home, we make cheese, handcrafted soap, and also raise hogs or calves with any surplus milk.
I must admit that I am a real stickler for a nice mammary system. Gosh, I look at it twice or more times a day when the doe is milking so I want it pretty. We do cull heavily in order to keep the herd small and we will sometimes sell Champion does in order to make room for younger animals to prove themselves. Most of my animals score "E" in mammary by 2 or 3 years, some rate an "E" as yearlings. My goal is to also have all of my does scoring "E" in general appearance as adults.
We don't show the goat as frequently as we used to, after so many summers spent showing it just is not so much fun anymore. When we do take a few of the goats out we still often bring home Best in Show and Championship awards.
We have been trying to take the chance to do some non-goat summertime activities like camping, fishing, and visiting some out of state friends. In order to accommodate this, our does are managed in a lower maintenace manner in order to allow us to leave the farm for more than 12 hours at a time. This means nursing kids for longer than 3 months and keeping wether's to work as milking machines. If a doe's kids are sold she might be dried off when we take our first trip and she will miss the few shows that we do make.
Because of our erratic schedules, I really prize does that tolerate changing milking times or once daily milking. If needed I will drop feed amounts and switch milkers on to grass hay in order to drop milk production. Two week later I might up their feed and switch them on to alfalfa and I expect them to increase production. I like a doe that can handle this kind of manipulation and still look good and milk well. My saanens really shine in this area! Dulcey & Karma both were on once daily milking from August on this year and still produced 8+ pounds per milking and looked show ring ready on into fall.
We had been on official DHIR milk test for 7 years. After over a decade of Linear Appraisal we cancelled this year's session. It was schedualed for very late summer and we just did not want to worry about having everyone (the goats) in top production just for an appraisal session. After all these years of breeding dairy goats I know what is "quality" and the scores are mainly for the buyers benefit.
All does are tested annually for Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. All does currently test negative. All kids are raised on CAE negative milk or a high quality milk replacer. They are treated for coccidia and wormed as necessary. All animals are fed a 16% ration and the best hay that we can get. Our goats are very active roaming and browsing over many acres of hills and woods.
Order Information:
KIDS
If you decide to order a kid from Fox Trot Farm we require a $100 deposit. Please make a second choice to insure that you get a Fox Trot kid. The deposit will be refunded or transferred to another kid should a kid of the preordered sex not be born. Shipping costs are the responsibilities of the buyer. We prefer NOT to ship by air but, if the buyer makes all of the arrangements kids can be shipped by air from Nashville Airport. We encourage buyers to visit our farm to pick up their kid.
MILKERS/ BRED DOES/ YEARLINGS
I do sometimes have milkers, yearlings or bred does for sale throughout the year. I receive a very large number of requests over each year for these goats. In order to be more fair to those who are serious about wanting a more mature animal from our herd I have begun to take deposits on these animals in the same manner in which we take deposits on kids ($100). When an animal becomes available the person first in line with a deposit has the option to purchase that goat with the deposit being applied to the purchase price. Should a client who has applied a deposit for an animal decide they are no longer looking for a goat, all they need do in notify me and their deposit will be promptly refunded.
Let me know if I can answer any more questions for you.
***Please email us
if you would like our postal mailing address.
We received too much junk mail
when our mailing address was available online.
