The Willowbank Herd is a small herd of pure Toggenburg goats with blood lines going back to the last importation of live goats from Switzerland in 1965 by the late Miss Bettie Duthie.
The founder of the herd was Broughby Carina T3117P who was purchased as a kid from Norman Villiers who had the Broughby Herd in North Yorkshire.
The herd is CAE Monitered and Scrapie Monitered
The first pure togg bred by me was R120Willowbank Cobweb* Br.Ch.
Cobweb was born in the middle of the night in a snowstorm in North Yorkshire. She had a twin brother who was not kept.
The herd had several moves around the Thirsk and North Yorks Moors area and finally moved south to my parents home on the Grand Union Canal at Rowington in Warwickshire at the beginning of December 1995 when Cobweb was ten years old.
The herd now had something new to amuse them ....rushes! They grew at the edge of the paddock and it wasn't long before the girls were wading into the canal to reach this bounty. Nothing stopped them and swimming was a daily event. In 1998 I bought in a male kid Daybreak Ariel to become the stud male.
Ariel produced some exellent stock and gained 3 BCC before foot and mouth curtailed showing for a time.
In 2004 I had on loan Rydece Nat T5376D who had a lot of swiss blood in him and I used him on all my females, having decided it was time to import some new blood into the herd and hopefully breed a new stud male from R108 Willowbank Moonshine.
Moonshine produced triplets, two polled and one horned. The two polled kids were named Flute and Quince. I kept Flute and sold Quince. Both boys have proved themseves and have boxed and coxed in the showring since their first outing!
As Ariel was beginning to show his age I felt it was time to breed a son to follow on and on 8th March 2007 Willowbank Pan arrived, he was born out in the orchard in the middle of the morning on a lovely warm spring day, along with a brother and a sister. He is now running with Ariel who is teaching him how to behave and later on Flute will join them.
There were a few shows in 2007 before it all came to a halt with another outbreak of Foot and Mouth. During this time Ariel became a Breed Champian at 9 years of age, when Willowbank Tern gained her star at 7 years old.
