Our Story
OUR STORY
Dairy Goat Farm
March 2018 our journey into goats began with a simple hug of a goat at a friend's house. we started talking, now at this time we had a full acre of yard we have never developed past having a big garden. I have lived here since 2011 , and a thought never crossed my mind to getting livestock animal.... why didn't I think of livestock animals years ago!
She asked if the kids would love to do 4-H this year and show some goats, her kids have loved it. We didn't hesitate and said yes! As soon as I got home and told my husband were getting some goats. He looked at me and said "ok".
We then got some goats. Our kids joined 4-H as well as I as a parent volunteer.
Then our journey began, what more can we do with these goats, poultry and our journey into recycling empty feed bags. We have had the honor to have a wonderful mentor in our life who has taught dairy goats and been a part of 4-H for 15 years.
We attended our first Dairy Goat Show in June 2019, boy what a rush that was and a great experience, , I won my first award " Dairy Goat Product Promotion and Sales". From then on, I have been determined to achieve everything I can with our farm.
We started milking goats and feeding babies at one point we had so much milk we didn't know what we could do with it and a friend said make some goat milk soap. 6 weeks later I had made over 300 bars of goat milk soap, booked an event for free in return I was to bring our goats and teach and show people about dairy goats.
That sounded like a huge win for me. We sold almost all of our soaps.
Our Daughter joined FFA and in November 2023 she was a one in four finalist for our dairy goat business. unfournatly we have closed down our dairy portion of breeding, milking and showing dairy goats but we still continue to educate many in the world of goats .
OUR STORY
Chickens
When getting into livestock many people would suggest getting chickens or any poultry to start with. We did not we jumped into goats and then got chickens. Why did I not get chickens a long time ago when we moved to this house in 2011...I say those people who say poultry first are right. I do love and adore my goats but I absolutely love and adore our poultry a little more. So, a year after having goats our neighbors had to move to a apartment and asked if we would take their 2 roosters, 7 hens, 4 ducks and we of course did.....Then another friend had these Silver Lace Cochin Bantams that the kids should show in 4-H . Sure, why not lets get some more chickens.... this is where the chicken math gets you.... Our kids showed her breeding flock of SLCB, and she won GRANDCHAMPION! and best flock ...she caught the bug of what else can we do with chickens so we ventured into showing chickens in 4-h. The next year her sister showed and won 2nd place with her Pencil Lace Wyandotte .
Now our Flock consists of geese , turkeys, a call duck , 2 ducks, and a lot of chickens. We Have a Blind Turkey named Queenie . 2 Blind chickens named Ethel and Phoenix . We take in unwanted hens, or disabled chickens and give them the best forever home.
OUR STORY
Empty Feed Bags
In 2018 we started our journey into livestock. As we progressed in our journey into milking goats, we were going through a lot of feed bags. Now I already like to recycle whatever we can, I took to the internet in search of " How to Recycle a Feed Bag" and I spent the night watching videos. The next morning, I broke out my sewing machine my husband bought me for Christmas 2 years prior and got to work. I made my first bag and right away texted my two closest friends. You won't believe what I made! They loved it, they would like a couple more, then posted on my Facebook, a few more friends wanted a couple more. then Will you take all my feed bags and do something with them! So, I started collecting feed bags from anyone that was going to throw them away and got to work. Booked my first craft fair and sold a few, started making gift baskets and attending a few more craft fairs. The end of 2020 we joined tik Tok and Instagram and decided to venture into social media a little bit more. I remember posting our first tik tok video of our reusable bags in July 2021, it reached over 100k views, and that month was the first time we sold over 200 bags across the United States.
Took us a full week of sewing and to fill all orders, we made it through! In November 2021 we opened our website, was super excited for it. Still new to technology we got our first order of bags right before Christmas. I was super excited about that; I rushed and filled the order. Boy did I learn a lot.
January of 2023 we dueted a video on tik Tok of someone throwing away feed bags and we said no don't do that send them to us and boy did that video take off at almost 3 million views and we almost sold out of our website, and we had many people wanting to send us their empty feed bags.
As of November 2023, we have kept over 17,000 empty feed bags out of landfill with 99% of that from our local landfill. We have made over 5000 reusable bags. 100's of stockings, many tablecloths and tarps, a pillow and an apron... the possibilities of what an empty feed bag can be made into are endless.
We are dedicated to our journey of keeping empty feed bags out of the landfill.
