Limestone Cottage Dairy Goat Stud

Limestone Cottage Dairy Goat Stud Urban/Hobby/Mini Farm
Bowen Mountain, NSW, Australia
Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Check out our YouTube Channel

I spent a good chunk of the weekend being a goat pimp 😅 Pheonix was demanding boyfriend time so I loaded her up in the t...
10/06/2026

I spent a good chunk of the weekend being a goat pimp 😅 Pheonix was demanding boyfriend time so I loaded her up in the trailer for a visit. After all that yelling she decided she wasn't interested. Her boyfriend was a gentleman & understood that she wasn't ready so he left her alone. The next day she was demanding again, so off we went again. She was very happy to see him the second time. If all went well Pheonix will have babies at the end of October. I'm very excited about this pairing!

Photo of Pheonix's daughter Athena 🥰

Linden visited the bees today for a final inspection before Winter really sets in. He performed a mite check & there are...
07/06/2026

Linden visited the bees today for a final inspection before Winter really sets in. He performed a mite check & there are no mites, yay! We are finishing the season with 5 healthy hives!

Look at this beautiful rainbow of brood, pollen & honey! This was from our Miracle Queen (you might remember she turned up out of nowhere & saved this colony when they were queenless). She has been a super-star!

We did another bee-hive inspection. All 5 hives are still working hard & filling their hives with honey. Our big, angry ...
26/04/2026

We did another bee-hive inspection. All 5 hives are still working hard & filling their hives with honey. Our big, angry colony who during this season alone have been split three times & swarmed once, were about to swarm again! They don't realise that they are meant to be slowing down for Winter. Their hive was jam packed with bees & honey again with a new Queen growing. They were our only colony at the start of the season & they have given us 3 more hives.

We checked for Varroa & we had the highest count since we started dealing with mites 😬 So we have treated all the hives. We'll check them again in 6 weeks to make sure the treatment is effective.

Everyone has moved into their permanent homes. We started this season of beekeeping with 1 hive, now we have 5 hives wit...
20/04/2026

Everyone has moved into their permanent homes. We started this season of beekeeping with 1 hive, now we have 5 hives with 5 queens who are laying eggs & doing well. Linden has harvested honey 3 times & almost needs to do it a 4th time. We have had plenty of hiccups & made some mistakes but somehow we've ended the season pretty successfully. We'll be doing a Varroa Mite check next weekend, before we settle everyone in for Winter.

If you go to the Hawkesbury Show this weekend you might spot some of Linden's wax & honey in the Pavilion.

We haven't had a chance to inspect the beehives for over a month 😬 So we checked them thismorning before the heat set in...
25/01/2026

We haven't had a chance to inspect the beehives for over a month 😬 So we checked them thismorning before the heat set in & it looks like we got to them just before Beetrix & her colony (the big colony) swarmed. We found lots of Queen cells with fresh eggs in them, so we performed a split to hopefully prevent swarming (the little white box). We moved Beetrix's Queen Excluder up so she now has 2 boxes to lay eggs in. We shuffled frames around & provided fresh foundation to create space in all of the hives, which will also hopefully help prevent swarming. All of the hives have lots of honey, we just have to wait for the bees to finish capping it which tells us it is ready to extract.

The mites are back! We performed a Varroa Mite check & found lots of the little buggers! We haven't found any in our regular tests since July. So we treated all of the hives today.

We are running out of equipment for all of these hives. Time to get some more boxes & frames ready for the next inspection!

🩶 Henrietta 🩶 our oldest Chicken passed away lastnight. She was a big, beautiful lady!
19/01/2026

🩶 Henrietta 🩶 our oldest Chicken passed away lastnight. She was a big, beautiful lady!

All 5 baby boys have gone to beautiful homes this week. It has been bitter-sweet. We are sad to see them go but their ne...
14/01/2026

All 5 baby boys have gone to beautiful homes this week. It has been bitter-sweet. We are sad to see them go but their new families have sent photos of some beautiful moments. I'm so grateful the right people found them 🥰

So Athena is the only baby left. She is learning the big girl routines. The Mumma goats don't seem to notice/care that 5 babies disappeared 😆 I guess the gradual weaning process was nice & smooth.

"So you got to let me know, who will stay & who will go?"If you asked me at the beginning of breeding season my answer w...
28/12/2025

"So you got to let me know, who will stay & who will go?"

If you asked me at the beginning of breeding season my answer would have been very different. But goats like to remind us that they are in control of our lives 😆 I was completely prepared to move Pheonix on, as well as her daughter Calypso. This was because I was hoping to keep a daughter from each of them, to keep numbers manageable on our small piece of land & also Phe wakes me up everyday 😅 Orca was ALWAYS staying because she was our first goat, she is my perfect princess & I had hoped to keep daughter from her as well. Canellini was staying & I had hoped to keep a daughter from her too.

But out of everyone we got a total of 1 girl instead of the 4 I hoped for 😅 As well as that, Pheonix reminded me of how beautiful she is & I quickly realised how stupid I'd be to let her go, especially because her daughter Calypso didn't fall pregnant so I haven't seen if the next generation will be an improvement. I could move Pheonix on then next season discover that her daughters udders are a step backwards. We also decided to retire Orca, so she takes up a space without contributing to the breeding plan/buisness.

The current plan put simply, all the girls are staying & all the boys are going. We are keeping:
- Ilalong Pheonix
- Limestone Cottage Calypso (Pheonix's 2yr old daughter from First Fleet Albinoni)
- Limestone Cottage Athena (Pheonix's 11 week old daughter from First Fleet Foxtrot)
- Bluebrook Sweetpea (Orca)
- Limestone Cottage Canellini (Orca's 2yr old daughter from First Fleet Albinoni)

Here is our beautiful Calypso who didn't give us any babies 😄

All the babies have had their scheduled vaccinations, as well as that they have been tagged & castrated. Last Monday the...
28/12/2025

All the babies have had their scheduled vaccinations, as well as that they have been tagged & castrated. Last Monday they started spending nights in a separate yard from their Mum's which shares a fence line, it went really well! Tomorrow they will start spending some of the day in that separate yard as well. Everyone has homes arranged for them 🥰 so they will only be with us for a few more weeks 😔 But we are happy that the right people found them ❤️

Temporary goaty playground, thanks to the local Arborist who dropped off some wood thismorning.
13/12/2025

Temporary goaty playground, thanks to the local Arborist who dropped off some wood thismorning.

Address

Bowen Mountain, NSW
2753

Telephone

+61422996732

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Limestone Cottage Dairy Goat Stud posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Limestone Cottage Dairy Goat Stud:

Shortcuts

Share