Welcome to A-K Acres! We own and operate a cash grain and dairy goat farming operation in the town of Marshall, WI (15 minutes north east of Madison off highway 94). We run around 350 acres of corn and soybeans, with a few acres of alfalfa to feed our dairy goat herd. Ashley has been raising Toggenburg dairy goats all her life (27+ years) and started a new herd with her husband Kyle at his family farm in the fall of 2012. Now Ashley and Kyle farm with the newest addition to the family, their son Rhett. As the family has expanded, so has the goat herd! An Alpine was added to the herd in February of 2015 to be Rhett's start into the dairy goat world.

Management is a primary focus with our dairy goats and it all starts with health and nutrition work. Our herd is 100% CAE, Johnes and CL negative. We test for these things twice annually, this is to insure we keep a close watch on our herd. This allows us the peace of mind, but also give our buyers great security as well. We participate in DHI milk test so we can evaluate our production on each doe, somatic cell count and the doe's components to make sure her health and nutritional needs are being met during production.

At A-K Acres we take pride in raising growthy animals and by doing this we put a large emphasis on our kids every year. If we take that time to raise healthy kids it is our belief it will translate into a more productive goat with stronger immunity. Our kids are bottle raised on pasteurized milk. In addition, they are properly vaccinated for CD&T administered at 8 and 12 weeks of age, and then once annually for life. We often get asked why we don't bring kids to shows before they are 6 months old....So we want to make the statement that if protected, we believe our kids will grow and build up a better immune system. Showing young kids is a risk and if they get sick it could set them back. So we have found by waiting to bring kids out after 6 months of age they are better off. This allows them to put more energy into growing to be big beautiful mature goats later in life!

Every year we try to get to as many shows as our schedules allow, but it can be tough with working full time and farming! We on average attend 3-4 shows per year and hope to increase that number into the future. In addition we take advantage of great tools like linear appraisal to help make management decisions and keep our herd going in the direction we want to see!

We are willing to take reservations on kids and work to ship out of Chicago O'Hare or Milwaukee Airports. Every year we do sell over half the kid crop to keep our numbers small. These are the best we have to offer ALWAYS because we want our animals to go and perform well in other herds! So if you are looking to consider a Toggenburg or Alpine for your herd, please don't hesitate to contact us and we would be happy to find the right fit for you!

Sincerely,

The Scheel Family
Kyle, Ashley, & Rhett