Like any good business our goals are often changing with the opportunities we are presented but certain aspects never change. We are focused on our community first provided quality 4H animals. With that comes a drive to produce better quality market kids and brood does yearly. With internal parasites having such a large impact on the goat industry our goal is produce resilient and resistant animals. We want our animals to strive in any operation they may end up in, commercial, seedstock or market.
Anitopia Acres is a beef and goat operation located in Central Michigan run by a mother daughter duo. Over the years the farm continues to grow and evolve to meet the demands of our market. What started off as a dairy farm branched into goats while Crista was showing in 4H and slowly added some beef cows over the years. Currently we are raising about 60 Boer goats and 30 club type cattle.
Other Endeavors
Our Focus
While we absolutely love the goats our main focus is the kids, human kids that is. Our county is the second poorest in the state which generally means kids lack opportunity. We have been providing affordable market goats projects to kids in Osceola county for the past 15 years. Recently we have started the Life Skills program which allows kids to apply for a free market goat for the Osceola County fair. Animals have a way of teaching kids more than any classes ever could and we want every kid to have the same experiences we have on our farm daily.
Our Beliefs
The goats aren't all we have! We also raise Great Pyrenees livestock protection dogs, Australian Shepherds and club calves all while milking 40 holstein crossbred cows! Just in case the farm didn't keep us busy enough we are also heavily involved in 4H and Crista also teaches color guard at the local dance studio with the few extra hours she does have.
We believe animals our better at their job than we are. What exactly does that mean? We want to model our goats after the herds that have survived in the wild for millions of years. To do this we eliminate unnecessary vaccines and treatments. We want animals who thrive on their own without human intervention. This includes sticking to a more conventional diet of forage. We don't plan on completely eliminating grain from our farm but we feel it is very important for kids to be grown on pasture, where high forage intake stimulates growth of the rumen.