GCH Curbstone Valley Desert Indigo +*B +*S

Looking past Indy’s flashy exterior, as soon as Indy was born, our initial impulse was to retain him. Structurally he looked like a miniature version of his sire, and despite not intending to retain a buck that season we just couldn’t convince ourselves to part with him.

Indy’s dam, Castle Rock Lotus, is a capacious and very productive doe, and is currently the best milker in our herd. As a second freshener, Lotus placed in top 10 nationally for protein production with AGS in 2014. In 2015 Lotus was breed leader with both ADGA and AGS for milk volume, butterfat, and protein. In 2017 she was designated a Superior Genetics , and Elite Doe. That same year, Lotus placed first on the ADGA Breed Leader list for protein, second for butterfat, and third for milk production, producing 1620 lbs during her 2017 lactation.

Abraham Darby, Indy’s sire, has consistently produced smoothly blended kids with tremendous width between their angular hocks, high and wide escutcheons, and excellent length of body. Darby easily earned his permanent grand champion status as a three year-old. Darby’s dam, GCH Castle Rock Tuscan Sun is also the dam of the 2019 ADGA National Champion.

Indy has straight front legs, stands square in the hock, with clean bone structure, and loose dairy skin.

Indy is tremendously affectionate, and loves to be around people. There’s no question that he acquired his dam’s placid, and gregarious demeanor, but has just a dash of his sire’s impishness, too.

There’s no denying that Indy’s pedigree is very dairy throughout, and his kids are well balanced, and have retained his length, levelness in rump, and dairy skin texture.

We had not intended to show Indy until he was more mature, as many young bucks still lack power, depth, and maturity to be competitive. However, even as a two year-old Indy was filling out quite nicely. Out of three rings at the first show in 2016, Indy walked away with TWO Grand Champion wins. His next show, early the following year, Indy again walked away with two more grand champion wins, finishing his permanent championship.

We tragically, unexpectedly, lost Indy just after Thanksgiving 2019. After an injury to his throat during rut, he collapsed in acute respiratory distress. He was rushed to UC Davis where an endotracheal tube was placed to help him breathe, while diagnostic imaging was done. He was maintained with an endotracheal tube in place, here at home, hoping the strong anti-inflammatory medication could help reduce the swelling in this throat and neck. Unfortunately, after 10 days with no improvement, and due to ensuing complications from the tube (esophageal stricture), we made the humane, but difficult decision to euthanize Indy. We were able to harvest 65 straws of semen post-mortem, which will be kept for on-farm breedings, in the hopes of producing more beautiful Indy daughters in the future.