About Our Operation

Mandolin Creek Goats seeks to raise goats in an ethical and economic manner, producing happy, healthy, and profitable animals for milk, meat, and service.

Our Story

2018

In August, the Mandolin Creek Goats unit was formed and began purchasing dairy goats. Along with an Alpine buck to serve as our herd sire, we acquired a dozen mature does of various breeds. These include a mix of proven does as well as potential first fresheners.

In September, we joined the ADGA and other local organizations to advance and promote dairy goats in Oregon.

In October and November, we purchased another ten does. In addition to nearly doubling our potential production capacity, this action primarily served as an insurance policy against disease, depredation, and other potential losses.

In November, a tragic accident killed our Alpine buck, so a purebred Toggenberg replacement buck was obtained to cleanup up any does that might remain open. He will serve as our 2019 herd sire as well.

In December, the cold and wet weather exposed latent diseases that had been purchased with the herd. A number of weaker does were lost, despite our efforts to save them.

Our final herd of animals consisted of and does representing almost all major breeds: Alpine, Nubian, LaMancha, Toggenberg, Saanen, and Kiko.

2019

In January, the first goat kids arrived at Mandolin Creek Farm. New kids arrived regularly for several months.

Milk production began to ramp up, peaking by the end of the spring. We spent several months working out safe and reliable production, sanitation, and testing processes. By the end of the summer, we were efficiently producing clean milk, but legal and liability issues continued to prevent us from offering it for sale to the public.

In August, we obtained a pair of Jersey steer calves, using our milk capacity to raise them on raw milk, giving us a constructive outlet for our excess production.

By the end of October, our does were all bred and starting to dry off, so we closed out our milk production for 2019.

At the start of November, we received notice that our insurance carrier had decided to drop our farm coverage. After spending time investigating alternative coverage, we realized that our raw milk marketing was the obstacle, and we had to make the painful decision to abandon our plans entirely. While this was not our preference, we needed to maintain coverage as required by our mortgage company. Apparently, no one will insure raw milk producers!

2020

Our does are due to kid beginning in January. While we no longer can sell their milk, we will sell their kids and use the milk for producing high-quality milk-fed livestock. Visitors to the farm or lodge can bottle-feed our calves, kids, and lambs.