Tag: alpine goats

Love on the Ranch

Written by rogue-admin on February 14, 2025. Posted in Stories & Updates.

Goat mating season is just ending and we’ve sent our male goat guest, Zeus, back to his home. Zeus came to visit us for the past month to have time with our does. Does signal when they are in heat by flagging their tails, which tells us they are ready for some time with Zeus. So we had a few weeks of watching, testing, and taking cues from them. Does come into heat every three weeks so Zeus visited long enough to see if another cycle was needed. They didn’t come back into heat a second time, which could be a sign of goat pregnancy!

Millie had also been brought to another buck earlier in the season, so she’s the first to be due in early April, and our next does will be due in early June. We will watch as the birth is impending, which includes all-night shifts from Suzanne and our staff. Whoever is tending to them when they are born gets to name the new babies! Stay tuned for spring baby goats!

Try your luck and book a stay with us in early April or early June to be a part of welcoming in the baby goats.

Goat Care

Often after baby goats are born it is another female goat that will take care of the babies while the mom takes a break. We often find the babies happily standing on the backs of an aunt goat playing babysitter.

Looking forward to wedding season!

Just four months until wedding season at Willow-Witt Ranch! We can’t wait to host couples and families at our campground and Meadow House venues. Couples and their guests enjoy three days of exclusive campground use including the camping area, four furnished wall tents, the bathhouse, cookhouse, wedding circle, and dance floor, plus an all-inclusive package of amenities. Planning your special day? We still have a couple open weekends for 2025 and are booking for the 2026 season.

Download Our Wedding Packet

Stay with Us

If you have 4-Wheel Drive and snowshoes, now is your time to come up and play in the snow!

The Meadow House: Sleeps 10
BOOK NOW

The Farm House Studio: Sleeps 6
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Looking forward to wedding season!

Willow-Witt ranch is seeking a Marketing Specialist / Administrator who excels at content creation, brand storytelling, and strategic audience development. Interested in learning more? Know of someone who may be a fit? Head to the JOIN OUR TEAM page on our new website for the full job description, including how to apply.

We will also be hiring a Camp Host & Farm Hand this spring as we staff up for the summer season, stay tuned for more info, or reach out to our business manager via email to learn more.

Laura Hardin manager@willowwittranch.com.

Winter Wonderland

Written by rogue-admin on January 17, 2025. Posted in Stories & Updates.

Winter at The Ranch

Winter brings out the serene nature of Willow-Witt Ranch. Our Farm Stays are open year-round and we have guests choosing to spend meaningful holidays with us.

The days are filled with cozy moments by the fire, birdwatching, and hiking/snowshoeing/or xc skiing depending on the conditions!

Our Farm Hands keep the roads clear and work daily to care for the land and the animals. You can visit us by booking a farm stay or coming up for the day to explore.

The Meadow House: Sleeps 10 *
BOOK NOW

The Farm House Studio: Sleeps 6 *
BOOK NOW

* All Farm Stays are 40% off through April. All stays are stocked with fresh eggs, and our Farm Store has seasonal produce for purchase.

Winter Animal Care

Our goats stay close to the barn this time of year. In addition to certified organic grass hay and alfalfa, we bring them conifer boughs or chips! Staff members are known to find their Christmas Trees at the ranch and bring them back as a gift to the goats!

Goats are all about cellulose: they don’t discriminate among live, recently-died, or long-dead trees and shrubs, or chips…it’s all good. Of course their favorite part of sunny winter days (which is most of the time at our elevation) is going for a hike with our staff to browse ‘fresh’ off the trees. They often accompany us when we work in the forest or on the roads.

We raise chickens on pasture; rotating pastures all summer and fall is easy. But what about winter? Our ‘chicken hoop’ is a 14’x24′ hoop on skids; it houses the hanging next boxes, keeps feed dry, and has roosts for ~80 hens for the night. And light through the white covering seems to help the hens keep laying when days are short and nights are long and dark. Chickens range inside a large yard for the winter…looking for bugs, of course. We bring the hens hay/alfalfa left from the goats’ feeders a few times weekly, full of bugs and ‘waste’ from the goats…perfect for scratching and pecking to find treasures.

As our temperatures rarely rise above freezing all animals have constantly-running fresh waterers…cold but fresh.

We can’t think of a better winter morning than waking up, stoking the fire, going for a snowshoe walk in the serene forest, and cooking up some eggs from the farm. We hope to see you and your family this winter at Willow-Witt Ranch!

The Willow-Witt Ranch Team

Raising goats can be entertaining and challenging

It’s Breeding Time for our Alpine Goats

Written by rogue-admin on December 4, 2015. Posted in Stories & Updates.

As we’re getting settled in for the colder months, we’re already making preparations for next year’s ranch babies! A new generation of goat kids is on the way. If you’ve visited us during birthing season, you know the joy that these playful and energetic baby goats bring. Needless to say, we are eagerly awaiting their arrivals!

Baby goats (kids) love to play and climb (often on each other)

Alpine dairy goats grazing in the meadow

Alpine goat doe

Visiting children and the goats just seem to get along with each other

Raising goats can be entertaining and challenging

At the ranch, we breed and raise Alpine goats. Having originated in the French Alps, this wonderful breed is both hardy and beautiful. They are intelligent with a curious nature, and have charming personalities. They provide us with milk and meat, and also make great pack animals for hiking and hunting.

Alpine goat does are well recognized as heavy milk producers. Our dairy goats provide us with an abundance of nutritious milk. Guests at the ranch are treated to fresh goat milk while staying with us at our farm stay accommodations, and we offer a Raw Milk Herdshare to our local Ashland, Oregon community. With our Herdshare, people can sign up for a steady supply of fresh, organically raised, unprocessed goat milk. If you’re local to the area and interested in signing up, contact us.

We bring in a different buck each breeding season, and this year we are pleased to welcome Sergio. This handsome fellow is currently breeding with seven of our does. Check out the mug on this guy!

Each mother typically gives birth to between one and four babies, which means we could very well have our hands full next Spring! It will be a great time to come up for a visit with your own kids; young people and goats seem to have a natural affinity for one another.

Be sure to check our photo gallery for lots of “baby” pictures, and come up for a visit if you can!