About Us
As mentioned before Itrek Acres is a family team. The name Itrek was created by using the first letter in each of our names. "I" is for Isabel. Our daughter and twin to Eva, who is the letter "E" in the name. Together they are huge helpers and are catching on to what we look for when breeding Nigerians. "T" is for Taden, our son who has lots of passion for the goats. The "R" is for Ron. The one who knows all the names and numbers of most goats out there. The last letter "K" is for Katrina. The one I (Katrina) would like to say is the driving force behind this whole endeavor, however, without the rest of the family it just would not be fun. We make a great team together, and that is why there is five hands in the logo and the name itself is made to include us all.
Showing livestock isn't new to this family and definitely not new for Katrina. She has been showing all kinds of species since 1990. She really got into showing sheep, Romney to be more specific. She absolutely loved them. Was very competitive with them as well. She also showed horses and poultry too. Continuing to do so with poultry as a adult. She was known nationally to have some of the best Sumatras in the country. She also would share her knowledge and passion for the poultry world by judging and mentoring youth events such as state fairs and county fairs. However, after her kids became old enough to talk, it was clear they did not have that same passion for poultry as Katrina. Driving to shows was no longer fun as the kids hated it. The idea was tossed around that maybe if we all picked a specie we all liked, raising them, and showing them would become fun again. It was the kids, and Ron, that really wanted to work with the Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. Katrina was not such a fan at all. If she was going to work with goats, she wanted one of the big ones. Especially Alpines. Instead it was decided that since the Nigerians came in whatever color you wanted and even had some fun extras such as blues eyes, that settled it. The kids enjoy being able to have different color goats than their siblings.
Fast forward a few years to the year 2019, and we got our first goats. Yay! but not so yay. We jumped right into LA, milk testing, and showing and did horrible. I mean we failed completely. The goats got dismissed in all their classes, which was embarrassing. They barely milked 2 pounds a day, and well LA left us in tears. It was a hard lesson to learn that it was not going to be that easy. So back to the beginning we went, again. We researched, and studied, and requested the best. That got us maybe next level to just okay. Wow it is hard, as the kids were getting attached to these goats too. So we decided to make a new rule. Each one of us are allowed to keep one "immunity" goat. Meaning that as long as that said person helps to do the chores, and takes care of the goats. Nobody could sell that immunity goat of theirs, no matter how that goat stood up to the standard. It could even not milk a drop, but would have to stay. Yes that means there are some goats in our program that are not ones that would be in a performance herd otherwise. However, our daughter Eva has gotten the show bug and wants to do better. She has decided to keep working with the line she has started, and every year will keep a doe from it. We are very proud of her. There is a lot of work for her to do with that foundation goat, but together we will help her.
Now we may not have the best goats out there, or not even great ones yet. The key word to hang onto is YET. We will get there eventually, its a slower path, but I think we are learning more for it. We are going to have to earn it. We still push ourselves every year. We still milk goats that don't give much, and take millions of pictures of them to add to the learning data. We collect all that info and put it towards bettering them. So as you look at our web page, you will see a lot of passion. Some of these goats won't be here another year, but will provide us with another step we need to move forward. A trek we are doing together.
We do want to thank all the wonderful people who have helped us along the way. There has been a few breeders that we would like to think of our mentors. Without them, we would be even more lost.
Showing livestock isn't new to this family and definitely not new for Katrina. She has been showing all kinds of species since 1990. She really got into showing sheep, Romney to be more specific. She absolutely loved them. Was very competitive with them as well. She also showed horses and poultry too. Continuing to do so with poultry as a adult. She was known nationally to have some of the best Sumatras in the country. She also would share her knowledge and passion for the poultry world by judging and mentoring youth events such as state fairs and county fairs. However, after her kids became old enough to talk, it was clear they did not have that same passion for poultry as Katrina. Driving to shows was no longer fun as the kids hated it. The idea was tossed around that maybe if we all picked a specie we all liked, raising them, and showing them would become fun again. It was the kids, and Ron, that really wanted to work with the Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. Katrina was not such a fan at all. If she was going to work with goats, she wanted one of the big ones. Especially Alpines. Instead it was decided that since the Nigerians came in whatever color you wanted and even had some fun extras such as blues eyes, that settled it. The kids enjoy being able to have different color goats than their siblings.
Fast forward a few years to the year 2019, and we got our first goats. Yay! but not so yay. We jumped right into LA, milk testing, and showing and did horrible. I mean we failed completely. The goats got dismissed in all their classes, which was embarrassing. They barely milked 2 pounds a day, and well LA left us in tears. It was a hard lesson to learn that it was not going to be that easy. So back to the beginning we went, again. We researched, and studied, and requested the best. That got us maybe next level to just okay. Wow it is hard, as the kids were getting attached to these goats too. So we decided to make a new rule. Each one of us are allowed to keep one "immunity" goat. Meaning that as long as that said person helps to do the chores, and takes care of the goats. Nobody could sell that immunity goat of theirs, no matter how that goat stood up to the standard. It could even not milk a drop, but would have to stay. Yes that means there are some goats in our program that are not ones that would be in a performance herd otherwise. However, our daughter Eva has gotten the show bug and wants to do better. She has decided to keep working with the line she has started, and every year will keep a doe from it. We are very proud of her. There is a lot of work for her to do with that foundation goat, but together we will help her.
Now we may not have the best goats out there, or not even great ones yet. The key word to hang onto is YET. We will get there eventually, its a slower path, but I think we are learning more for it. We are going to have to earn it. We still push ourselves every year. We still milk goats that don't give much, and take millions of pictures of them to add to the learning data. We collect all that info and put it towards bettering them. So as you look at our web page, you will see a lot of passion. Some of these goats won't be here another year, but will provide us with another step we need to move forward. A trek we are doing together.
We do want to thank all the wonderful people who have helped us along the way. There has been a few breeders that we would like to think of our mentors. Without them, we would be even more lost.