Curbstone Valley Harmony 5*M 8*D AR 3660

Every once in a while one breeds a doe to a buck that produces very unexpected results. That happened with Harmony’s grand-dam, Mariposa Lily. Bred to an outside buck, that had very strong mammaries behind him, he threw incredibly weak medials, universally, to all of his daughters. Crashing from a 91 with E in udder for her dam, to 78 with an A udder. It was shocking. It is no slight on the breeder. It is the game of roulette we all play as breeders, called ‘independent genetic assortment’.

However, what Harmony’s grand-dam, Lily, lacked in mammary attachment, she continued to excel, for her very petite size, in production, as we would expect a Lotus daughter to do. However, we had to fix those wretched attachments.

In one generation, with the right buck, we moved that mammary system from a 78 A udder, back up to a 90 E udder with Harmony’s dam, Celastrina. Trina has consistently stamped her kids with beautiful general appearance, and is a beautiful doe in her own right. Significantly improved over her dam, both in general appearance, and mammary strength.

Harmony then excelled her dam, by earning a junior RGCH, at just five months of age. Trina was often head of the line in her class as a junior, but never quite managed to eek out a big ribbon. We love that Harmony has conserved her dam’s general appearance.

Many have scoffed at breeding a doe up to improve udder, and our response is that all does in the breed have been ‘bred up’, through their sire’s contributions, whether they admit it, or not. Is there instant gratification? No, not always. Do their udders always improve? No, not always. But with careful sire selection, Harmony’s dam is proof that ground that was lost, can be regained.

Through no fault of her own, Harmony was a first freshening four year-old in the spring of 2022. Due to our own scheduling issues, she did not get bred for spring of 2020, and then the entire herd sat out the fall breeding season that year due to the CZU Fire. Sadly, the last doe to freshen in 2022, Harmony was rammed hard by a more senior doe in the herd in her last week of pregnancy, and suffered a placental abruption that cost her both kids. Her first freshening udder never really reached it’s potential as a result. A devastating end to the season, but Harmony recovered fine, and is bred to freshen again in 2023.