Farm Visits and Biosecurity Concerns
We often get requests from people who want to visit our farm to "meet our animals" or to ask us questions about how we do things. We are not able to allow these visits for several reasons. First is the biosecurity risk to our dairy goat herd and Maremma Sheepdog puppies. Visitors could inadvertently bring in diseases such as CAE, CL and Johnes Disease, Canine Parvovirus, and Distemper. For this reason, we do not allow farm visitors into our barn area, pastures, farm common areas, or puppy-rearing areas. Instead, we have a customer pick-up area near our house, and we bring the puppies or goats to their new owners to minimize the risk to our animals.
Secondly is the safety of our customers, our liability, and the well-being of our animals. We have several Maremma Sheepdogs actively guarding our dairy goats and other animals. While our Maremmas are very affectionate with people they know, they are wary of strangers near the animals they protect. Our dogs are working dogs, and while we are happy for customers to view them from afar when picking up their animals, we allow them to do their jobs in peace as much as possible. We do not want to risk our customers getting hurt or causing undue stress to our dogs.
And the final reason we do not allow visitors is time constraints and workload. We run a big operation, with only limited staff caring for all the animals, running the business, and interacting with customers. Allowing casual visitors would take away valuable time we need to do other things, such as feeding animals, milking goats, and training puppies. For this reason, we limit visits to those who have already reserved a puppy or goat with a non-refundable reservation fee or who are interested in purchasing specific animals that are currently available.
Instead of farm visits, we strive to make our website as helpful as possible to potential customers. Photos, pedigrees, and other information for all the animals we have for sale and every goat or Maremma we own are on our website. You can see photos and videos of our Maremmas in action and guarding their herd and our puppies in training, pictures of all available baby and adult goats, photos of current and past Maremma litters, as well as lots of pictures and videos going back several years that depict how we manage our Maremmas and goats. More photos are available on our Instagram and Facebook business pages.
We work hard to keep our website and social media accounts up-to-date and relevant so that people can become familiar with our farm safely and conveniently. We also have many articles, blog posts, links, and information to assist you in making your choices. We are happy to answer any questions by email or text.
We are also happy to schedule a phone conversation, but we require you to complete the goat or puppy questionnaire first. These questionnaires help us serve our customers by getting all their information in one place BEFORE proceeding further with more in-depth discussions.
Secondly is the safety of our customers, our liability, and the well-being of our animals. We have several Maremma Sheepdogs actively guarding our dairy goats and other animals. While our Maremmas are very affectionate with people they know, they are wary of strangers near the animals they protect. Our dogs are working dogs, and while we are happy for customers to view them from afar when picking up their animals, we allow them to do their jobs in peace as much as possible. We do not want to risk our customers getting hurt or causing undue stress to our dogs.
And the final reason we do not allow visitors is time constraints and workload. We run a big operation, with only limited staff caring for all the animals, running the business, and interacting with customers. Allowing casual visitors would take away valuable time we need to do other things, such as feeding animals, milking goats, and training puppies. For this reason, we limit visits to those who have already reserved a puppy or goat with a non-refundable reservation fee or who are interested in purchasing specific animals that are currently available.
Instead of farm visits, we strive to make our website as helpful as possible to potential customers. Photos, pedigrees, and other information for all the animals we have for sale and every goat or Maremma we own are on our website. You can see photos and videos of our Maremmas in action and guarding their herd and our puppies in training, pictures of all available baby and adult goats, photos of current and past Maremma litters, as well as lots of pictures and videos going back several years that depict how we manage our Maremmas and goats. More photos are available on our Instagram and Facebook business pages.
We work hard to keep our website and social media accounts up-to-date and relevant so that people can become familiar with our farm safely and conveniently. We also have many articles, blog posts, links, and information to assist you in making your choices. We are happy to answer any questions by email or text.
We are also happy to schedule a phone conversation, but we require you to complete the goat or puppy questionnaire first. These questionnaires help us serve our customers by getting all their information in one place BEFORE proceeding further with more in-depth discussions.