The herd

The Beginnings
We acquired our first 2 goats in 1978 but it was not until 1981 that we decided to expand the goats and we bought in more females. Three of these goats were female kids from two well established herds (Kolding and Oakcroft) and these 3 animals went on to form the basis of our breeding policy for the next 29 years and establish for us 3 excellent female families. Two of these families remain with us today and after the third family “died out” some 15 years ago we have, over the intervening years, replaced it with 2 other lines. Both of these new families started from the purchase of 2 female kids from two exceptional female lines, Myddlewood and Ashdene.

RM 131 Ashdene Neferkare. Founder member of our latest family.

Herd policies and health status
The objectives of our goat breeding etc. are stated on our home page and include producing show quality stock with:
2000+ litre annual lactations;
Good butterfats and proteins;
Extended lactations i.e. milking for a second year beyond 365 days;
Sound udder conformation.

We aim to increase our current total of 11 champions and 17 breed champions.

The herd consists of both British Saanen and white British (grade) goats. Due to work commitments and my long period of chemotherapy following bowel cancer in 2009 we limit the herd at the moment to no more than 4 milkers with 2 goatlings (dry yearlings), 3 female kids and 2 males making up the remainder of the herd .

We do kid yearlings at times and good examples of these would include RM208 Toddbrook Missellie Q*2 BrCh (see my article in 1988 BGS Yearbook), RM151 Toddbrook Missfreda Q* 3 BrCh, AR207 Toddbrook Yew *1 BrCh (required only a Q* to become a full champion) and currently RM190 Toddbrook Bucklebury *1 (2CCs, 3 Res CCs & 1 IPCC).

Generally though our policy is to kid at 2 years of age. Weaning is carried out on both male and female kids at 3 months of age and surplus milk is fed to our beef calves.

The Males Three males in particular have been very influential in our herd - Seaward Sumao, Ashdene Ashworth and their grandson and son respectively, Toddbrook Tallahasee. We try and collect semen on a regular basis from our males and this is usually made available for sale. We are presently looking into upgrading our collecting facilities so that semen collected in future years will meet the stringent export requirements. Current males with semen availability can be seen HERE.
	CH R256 Toddbrook Valaquenta Q* and SM CH §131/197† Toddbrook Tacamahac BrCh. Winners of the Interbreed Pairs Competition at the 2005 National Breed Show Photo: Peter Cox

Goats names
Our naming policy is relatively simple. We currently have four families originating from Kolding Missprue, Oakcroft Hazel, Atherton Genoa and Ashdene Neferkare and all of our female goats have names which identify them to their mothers' particular family. So that we can tell quickly when they were born, these names all begin with the current year letter. As we have now gone through the alphabet, the 2011 crop of female kids will all begin again with the letter "E". The British Saanen males almost always begin with “T” “whilst our British males begin with “M”. Like the females, we try to name them so they are immediately identifiable as coming from their particular family. Of course though, with any good system there are anomalies and Toddbrook Seville is a classic example - she was named for the cancelled city break holiday to Seville which we had to give up as her dam was very ill before kidding.

2010 Herd Achievements

Due to a variety of circumstances we only attended 3 shows in the 2010 season. Toddbrook Bucklebury (as a kidded yearling running through) achieved 1 CC, 2 Res CCs and 1 IPCC from the 3 shows whilst Toddbrook Bramble achieved 2 1sts, 1 2nd place and 2 BCCs. We did not show any youngstock or males at all.

On the milking front, Bucklebury milked exceptionally well running through producing over 6.kg per day whilst Bramble achieved Q* status.

Toddbrook Valaquenta won the British Goat Society's Ashdene Metaphor award for the highest milk recorded Champion in 2009 with her 3rd lactation yield of 2250kg. She had also won this prestigious award previously in 2007 for her 2nd lactation yield of 2560kg

The Future
We continually aim to produce the perfect goat. One day possibly we may achieve this and then we will retire and rest upon our laurels! Until then we will continue to use only the best possible males available, which may involve bringing in blood lines from abroad, so that we can maintain our record of producing goats who do well both in the show ring and in the bucket and whose sons perform well not only in our own herd but in other peoples as well.



	The Beginnings
	Herd policies and health status
	The Males
	Goats names
	2010 Herd Achievements
	The Future