Bramblestone Peach Tea

Peach Tea (aka Peachy) is the granddaughter of 3*M Old Mountain Farm Hot Tea 3*D (LA 05-04 90 EEEV) and the daughter of 4*M Bramblestone Sun Tea 4*D (LA 04-03 87 +EEE) – two does that I really love many things about. But, they had a couple of conformational weaknesses that held them back from getting the highest linear appraisal scores and doing terrific in the show ring.

As breeders of Nigerian Dwarf goats, we’re continually trying to improve the breed. So, we were very happy to observe Peach’s first freshening udder and see that she appears to have advanced nicely in those areas we’re trying to improve.

Bramblestone Peach Tea – First Freshener

The photo above and below are of Bramblestone Peach Tea as a first freshener. As you can see, she has a beautifully attached and capacious first freshening udder. She is also looking long, refined, and correct conformationally!

Peach Tea’s First Freshening Udder

The things that I love about Peachy’s dam and grand dam are how long and elegant they are, their very capacious udders, how easily they express milk, and how beautifully they milk out. Peach has retained those qualities but also appears to have improved in areas where they were weak.

4*M Bramblestone Sun Tea 4*D – First Freshener

The photo above and below are of Peachy’s dam as a first freshener. Although they look very similar, Peachy’s front legs are positioned farther back beneath her withers giving her a leveler topline and more brisket. Also, her udder is more capacious and she has a stronger rear udder.

Sun Tea’s First Freshening Udder

We didn’t own Peachy’s grand dam as a first freshener, so it’s not possible for me to make a direct comparison of what she looked like at that point as opposed to her daughter and grand daughter. Although her permanent LA score is excellent (90 EEEV), she also exhibited front legs that were too far forward and weakness in rear udder strength.

Both she and Sun Tea are big milkers, but their udders are tucked so tightly up under them that it isn’t apparent. The photo below is of Hot Tea as a third freshener.

3*M Old Mountain Farm Hot Tea 3*D

Here are photo’s of Peach, Sun, and Hot Tea as yearlings. At this point, Sun shows some refinement in the neck and head, but no improvement in leg placement or topline. Peach exhibits better front leg placement, brisket, topline, head and neck refinement.

Bramblestone Peach Tea – Yearling

Bramblestone Sun Tea – Yearling

3*M Old Mountain Farm Hot Tea 3*D – Yearling

All three of these does are beautiful; however, I find it fascinating to compare the pictures and observe the changes from generation to generation. As breeders we try to make improvements and it looks like Peach is an advancement from her already very impressive dam and grand dam.

The photos below are of them as babies and this is when it’s really hard to choose who to keep:

Baby Peach Tea

Baby Sun Tea

Baby Hot Tea – Photo Courtesy of Old Mountain Farm

It’s encouraging that two generations of careful breeding can result in improvements that can be seen and that should contribute to a goat that will have a long and productive life. Of course careful breeding means reading pedigrees (see Understanding Dairy Goat Pedigrees) and carefully choosing herd sires (see Choosing Herd Sires).

Another tool that we find very useful is linear appraisal (see Understanding Dairy Goat Linear Appraisal). Having each goat individually appraised and evaluated on all the traits provides lots of information on what could be improved and what’s already working! Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that our goat lines are based on fantastic bloodlines from Old Mountain Farm.