RDR Farm - Francis Creek Ranch

05/31/2026

I only clipped Samba for last weekend, but since Aiden’s goat “Trouble” was along for the ride, she got an udder clip, some showing practice, and an updated picture 💗 By day 2 she was even ready for Aiden to be the one showing her (with some help).

This is RDR Got Bad Habits, affectionately known as “Trouble”, and ironically the most kid friendly, patient, kindest doe in the barn. She’s a 4 year old on her second lactation this year after an extended first lactation. We got two nice AI doe kids out of her and Rachel’s struggling to decide which one to keep and which one to sell. Somehow our LaMancha herd has become awfully monochromatic in recent years… and we’re 99% sure the trend is about to continue 😅

05/30/2026

We went to our first club show since 2023 last weekend at the REDGA Memorial Doe Show, and we had an amazing weekend!!

Deb’s 7 year old doe, GCH (pending) Samba just needed one more leg, so we loaded everyone up and went for a road trip to try and get it for her.

Samba is a pretty special doe, and quite possibly the hardest working one we’ve ever had. She’s definitely set a new standard for the level of production and length of lactation that we expect from our does. She’s milked through for 550-670 days on each of her lactations, and is nearly 450 days into her current lactation already! I wish we were currently on test and had official milk records, but we’ve been off test since 2020 and aren’t planning to start back up.

Samba just showed in the two rings on Saturday, earning RCH in one and GCH and BOB in the second. She also had an honorable mention for Best Doe in Show, and we couldn’t be happier with how she looked in that final line-up of the day.

As our newest pending permanent champion, we’re looking forward to figuring out our breeding plans for her for 2027, and should have planned breedings posted in August. Deb doesn’t have any Samba doe kids yet, so any does will be retained and buck kids will be available.

Huge thanks to everyone who hosted, organized, and volunteered to make the REDGA show happen this year! We had a wonderful time, and hope to be back next year 💗

04/24/2026

And that’s a wrap on calving season for us 💗 Four Angus calves and one Shorthorn Plus heifer. Once we get everyone registered and weaned we’ll have a couple of these available.
Aiden is working on names for all the new calves, and so far “Flash Hundred Yard Dash” is the only one that has stuck 😅

03/04/2026

And that’s a wrap on kidding season for us! 🎉

Our first doe kidded 11/3, and the last one kidded 2/27. After kidding out 13 does (11 Boer and 2 LaMancha), we ended up with a total of 32 kids, 13 buck kids and 19 doe kids, from 6 sets of triplets and 7 sets of twins.

Huge thanks to the families who purchased our Boer bottle kids (we just leave twins on each doe), we appreciate you!! 🥰 And to all of the families picking up their 4-H projects later this month. All of our market goat prospects are spoken for this year, but we will have some ABGA registered doe kids available later this spring, as well as 1-2 ABGA registered purebred buck kids. Please contact us if you’d like to be notified when they’re ready for interested buyers 😊

At this point I don’t know if we’ll have any LaMancha doe kids available, but if we do decide to list any they’ll be posted on our social media and our website sometime in June.

02/19/2026

And then there was one bred doe left in the barn.

This was our first year back on schedule for kidding and calving since Richard passed in 2022. The last few years have been a process, and our goal was just to take on what we could when we could, even if it meant some of the cows and does got a year off.

This year we actually got everyone bred on schedule, our Boer does kidded Nov-Jan, everyone settled, and all the does and kids are doing well so far. It feels good being back on schedule again and having the barn full of does with kids.

Cobra though… she had other plans. I opted for blood tests instead of ultrasounds this year, I just couldn’t get the ultrasounds scheduled during the ideal window for counting kids. So even though we did the blood tests a little too late to narrow down due dates, I assumed she was also bred with the others. Then when her December due date blew by, I thought maybe I had 2 due in January. Then I just figured she had a false positive blood test. Well, it’s February now and she’s officially bagging up. So hopefully kidding season comes to an end for us shortly, and hopefully there’s just two kids in there, maybe even a fancy doe to retain 🤞

So one more bred doe. Then onwards to calving season 💗

01/16/2026

And we’re down to our last Boer doe left to kid now that Aiden’s “good goat” gave him a cute little girl this week 💗
It was our first complicated kidding in a few years, and we’re incredibly grateful to live just a couple miles from our local livestock vets, and to have wonderful small ruminant and dairy vets in the practice.
Aiden is thinking up a magical name for his newest addition, and has been spoiling her rotten and harassing her mom every chance he gets after school 🥰 😂

11/20/2025

Annnd we’ve officially wrapped up our first month of kidding season with the arrival of these two girls last night 😍
We kidded out 5 boer does this month with a total of 12 kids, 6 buck kids and 6 doe kids. Every doe was kind enough to kid in the late afternoon or early evening, and every kid arrived unassisted and healthy 💗 Fingers crossed the 6 boer does due in December go as smoothly.
We’ll be sorting kids in the next few weeks - and will be getting back to those of you who contacted us about buck prospects. A few of these kids will be market wether prospects, 2-3 will be breeding buck prospects, and we’ll be retaining 2-3 of the doe kids and offering the rest for new herds. Everyone headed to new homes will be ready to go in March of 2026!

11/05/2025

After doing some math on does to milk next year, we’ve decided to make Tango available.

She is confirmed bred to Lucky*Star’s RJ Redford for late February kids, and we’re taking her down to once a day milking.

Please contact us for more info! 😊

Tango’s ADGA Genetics link:
https://genetics.adga.org/GoatDetail.aspx?RegNumber=L002023966

Planned Pedigree for Redford x Tango:
https://genetics.adga.org/PlannedPedigreePrint.aspx?SireNum=L002286310&DamNum=L002023966

This was our very first time showing RDR Humboldt Tango, and this is the first time we’ve posted about her since she rejoined our herd this spring.

Tango is a six year old littermate to Samba, and is a doe we sold as a kid to a local 4-H family. While she was never kind enough to produce a doe kid for the young man who raised and showed her, he did an excellent job raising and exhibiting her, and when he aged out of FFA she returned to us as a bred doe this spring.

Tango is a doe who has excellent general appearance, with feet and legs and a front end that any aged doe would be envious of. Her mammary system isn’t the most capacious (honestly, spending most of her life as a 4-H project doe, this is probably her first full 305 day lactation - and we’re going to see how she feels about milking through this year), but she still has strong and smooth attachments both fore and rear.

She had a single doe kid this year, who Aiden named Rainbow and has decided to keep “so her and Trouble can be his milkers”. So while she hasn’t been in our herd for long, she’s already leaving her legacy.

10/03/2025

And just like that, breeding season is coming to a close here!

Our Boers are all due from 11/4-12/18, and we will have market wethers available this year! Contact us now to get on the list for your June/July/August fairs. Our 30 day countdown to kidding is about to begin!

The LaManchas were synched and bred for February kids, fingers crossed nobody cycles back next weekend so we can officially call it a wrap on breeding season🤞

And we’ll have registered Angus calves hitting the ground in April, with one Shorthorn plus also on the way. We’re only keeping 2-3 replacement heifers, so we should have heifers, bulls, and potentially a market steer prospect all available in the Fall.

https://www.franciscreekranch.com/breedinglist.html

09/29/2025

Our lone little Shorthorn heifer this year is just 4 months old and still hanging out with the cows. She’s super easy going though, and we’re looking forward to halter breaking her this winter. Her dam is bred back for an April calf we hope is just like her 😊