The Beginning...

    Rose Marie purchased her first doe, Katrinka, in her early twenties.  She knew nothing about goats at the time and was not warned that goats are incredibly social animals.  A goat must have a friend to be happy-either another goat, a small horse, or some other type of animal.  If a goat does not have an animal friend than it will either inevitably become your best friend and take up residence on your front porch and might even find a way to dance on your table.  Since the first table dance was not well received, Katrinka took up residence with the dogs and would chase rabbits across the field with the German Shepherd.

    After Rose Marie married Louis Brandt, they moved just outside of Little Rock.  Lou worked for an engineering firm and Rose Marie ran a small custom hatching operation.  She had purchased several more goats by that time and sold goat milk on the side.  While the does were mostly grades, high quality bucks from breeders that bred for both milk and show were always used.  The best kids were kept and the herd quality slowly improved.

Dairying...

    After moving to the Ozarks, we begin dairying.  Since we originally lived in a meadow next to a tiny town called Marcena we called the dairy Marcena Meadows.  We had about thirty milking does at that time.  We later moved about 15 miles north of Marcena and began dairying again to pay for Lou's return to college.  (He was finishing the requirements necessary to become a highschool science and math teacher.)  We kept the farm name Marcena Meadows until recently; however, we have decided it is a slight misnomer since we no longer live in Marcena and we live on top of a hill rather than in a meadow.  Thus the name change.

    By this time, we had established several Alpine lines that consistently produced heavy milking does with acceptable conformation.  During the dairy's peak production year, we had 73 milking does.  Our operation facilities met all the criteria for a Grade A operation; however, since the plant only bought milk 10 months out of the year we had to sell Grade C.  We were not on official DHIA milk tests, but based on the dairy’s production records from milk sales our does averaged around over 9 lbs per day with a third of our does being first fresheners.  We did limited showing of our does because the dairy forced us to stay home, but we always did very well at the local shows.

Currently...

We have sold most of our does since we are no longer dairying.  We purchased a couple of Boer bucks and attempted to convert over to meat goats to reduce the work load after I, Angela, left for college.  However, we have recently become concerned about losing the genetic lines that took so long to develop.  Therefore, we are now working on preserving and improving our old Alpine lines and maintaining these does separately from our meat goats.