Beginning our journey in raising Mini and Toy Aussies has been a lot of fun for us. We had saved a female blue merle standard Australian Shepherd from the shelter and found out she was very good for herding our animals -a job she was *very* good at! Her name was Kiska and she stayed with us until she died at 14ys . Her loyalty and wonderful herding skills were something we couldn't do without (as we raised milk goats) and so we decided to get another dog like her. At that time a friend of ours had gotten a Mini Aussie which she brought over for us to see. We just fell in love with the miniature version of our Kiska! We decided right then and there that we were going to get one. We were able to purchase a beautiful black tri female from Maple Hill's in Washington her name is Maple Hills Precious Moments and we have never regretted it. We have also purchased a small mini black tri female and are retaining a toy black tri female and a mini blue merle female. We also have purchased a red merle toy male from Sundance Aussies.
We have a few Nigerian Dwarfs ( Mini Dairy Goats) which we are having lots of fun with. Most of our stock has come from Margo Piver or Andrea Green in Washington.One little doe came from Sandy Hollow in Southern Idaho. These little goats are so sweet and just so much easier to work with and they still give a decent amount a milk. We also have a few mixed full sized milkers too. We hope to do some showing of our ND's and we will be having kids for sale every year. We hope to get into making cheeses and soaps in the near future. Larry is our Guard Llama and keeps our goats safe!
My Childeren decided to get into Showing rabbits so we tried some ARBA Rabbit shows. We are now raising Netherland Dwarfs with a pair of old Mini Rex that I will keep. We have done pretty well in the past with some of our other breeds. One of our Dutch even got a BEST IN SHOW! We only go to a few shows each year but we have fun and we are continually learning more about the breeds that we raise. Because our rabbitry is small we usually have bunnies or adults for sale through out the year to keep our size down.
BIS Libby MT.
