About Us
This all started with a trip to the Grant County Fair. The kids had been in Cloverbuds and 4H, but never a livestock project. After moving from Green Bay to Platteville, we found ourselves living back in town waiting for a place of our own in the country. Finally, in 2016, we built a house just outside of town and the hunt for the goats and chickens began. The following spring, the students at Platteville High School built us a goat and chicken shack. As soon as it was set, we purchased two Nigerian Dwarf goats, Nestle and Oreo, and a family gave us their flock of chickens as they were moving into town. That marked the start of Brogley Acres, LLC. It's hard to describe just how much we learned the past six years. Jessica began taking courses in Dairy Goat Herd Management with Claire Heberlein at Southwest Tech, studying online resources, and finding strong mentor groups. A year later Jenna also began taking classes at Southwest Tech her Junior year.
Matthew holding the very first baby born here.
Matthew & Jenna showing in the pet class at the GCF.
In 2019, we added boer goats to the barn by purchasing a handful of does from Betsy Muehleip of Ten Strikes Ranch in Scales Mound, IL. That first year brought a wealth of learning opportunities as we really jumped into learning about small ruminant health care and genetics. After careful study, in June of 2020, we selected our herd sire, Tadita Moonwaves Hurricane from Michelle Libersher of Tadita Boer Goats in Custer Park, IL. The addition of Hurricane has given us three years of beautiful kids with excellent genetics behind them.
Tadi Tadita Moonwaves Hurricane
Hurricane's sire is East Heritage PTR Moonwaves, full brother to Moonslinger who sold for $53,000 at the 2017 Fall into Color Sale. Hurricane has brought excellent hooves, improved teats, a level topline, a beautiful head, and increased bone and thickness. As far as color, he's given us just about everything depending on the doe. With Hurricane having solid black, black dapple, and red dapple in his pedigree, he's offered all sorts of surprises.
Matthew helping Shadow Nurse
2020
Matthew and Mischief
2021
Matt and Jolene
2022
Jenna, Hokey, and baby Hazel
2023
We have now added a second sire to round out the next generation of goats. In April of 2023, we purchased SRF32 Gridlock's Creed Thoughts (AKA Creed) from Bruce Williams of Wild Rose, Wisconsin. As Jessica researched Creed's lineage, she discovered a star-studded top and bottom with history-makers like LK7 Smokin Hot Spots, LK7 Devil Spots, Westfall's Red Violet, BLSM Girl Crush, and the coveted ADVB Unanimous Decision, and to boot, he's double-bred with BLSM Copper Penny, daughter to Lazy S-T Coppertox. Combine this line-up with the strength and beauty of the Tadita line and the durability of our original Ten Strikes Ranch line, it's fair to say we are on the right track.
More than anything, the goats have given Brad and Jessica a chance to teach the kids about integrity, compassion, and hard work. While it's been tough to juggle all the demands of being a teenager, the kids have invested not only their own money, but time in the barn. They're present for all the phases, both good and bad, and are better people because of it.
