Welbian Farm: Putting Peru on the map

Running this farm is more than just a job, it's a beauty contest. Let the best goat win.

Story and photos by Kate Via

Madison has traveled the country, competing against others like her. In 2007, she traveled 3,000 miles to Wyoming, the farthest from home she’d ever been, to capture the gold in the Reserve National Championship. Three years before that, she took first place in the National Championship in Pennsylvania.

Madison doesn’t swim laps to secure these medals. Nor does she run miles, dunk baskets or drag race cars. Madison simply looks good from head to tail.

Madison, by the way, is a goat.

An experiment that began more than 20 years ago with two goats for Donna and Glen Pearce has grown to approximately 85 goats of six different breeds and a busy schedule for the Pearce family as they travel the country showcasing their goats.

And it all began as a 4H project for their children.

“My daughters were into 4H and showed horses,” Donna says. But when it came time to take on a secondary 4H project, the family wasn’t sure where to turn.

“Our neighbors down the road had goats, so we went out knowing nothing and bought goats,” Donna continues. As their children grew up left the family home, Donna and Glen, along with family friend Michael Binion, continued showing the goats.

They named their farm, located down a quiet, Peru country road, Welbian Farm, by combining the letters from Welara, a breed of pony, with Nubian, their first breed of goats.

“Each animal competes against all the other animals in the rank. So what you’re looking at is body conformation and mammary (glands), which is what the milk comes out of. It’s like a beauty contest … a beauty contest for goats”

The Welbian Farm herd now competes in shows across the country, sometimes with 30 or more goats from the farm competing in a single show. “Each animal competes against all the other animals in the rank,” Binion says. “So what you’re looking at is body conformation and mammary (glands), which is what the milk comes out of. It’s like a beauty contest … a beauty contest for goats.”

He says two of the most important factors in raising award-winning goats are good genetics and good management, and Welbian Farm seems to be right on track on both counts.

In 2004, the herd traveled to Harrisburg, PA, to compete in the National Championship, where Madison, a Toggenburg goat, took first place. “When we won the National Championship, we went there with the intentions of placing in the top five, and that was only because this doe (Madison) had done it before,” Binion says. “We never, ever expected to win the National Championship.”

Then in 2007, Madison went on to win the Reserve National Championship in Wyoming. Although winning these competitions doesn’t result in any cash award, the title is as beneficial as any monetary amount.

“You just earn the title, and the thing of it is then that makes our herd, because we own a National Champion, that much more valuable,” Binion says. “We sell more kids; we get nominated to prestigious sales where the kids go for big dollar amounts.”

“He’s been dead probably about ten years now, and he’s still producing kids all over the country. His semen was collected and has become very, very valuable. It’s a big business, the semen business”

But selling kids isn’t the only way Welbian Farm makes its money. Madison’s father, Winchester, continues to make his mark on the goat world. “He’s been dead probably about ten years now, and he’s still producing kids all over the country,” Binion says. “His semen was collected and has become very, very valuable. It’s a big business, the semen business.”

Because of Madison’s success, Welbian Farm is best-known for its Toggenburg goats, but they also breed and compete with Alpine, Oberhasli, Saanen, Lamancha and, most recently, Nigerian Dwarf goats.

Each breed has different coloring standards that have developed over time and attributes that set them apart from the others.

“Toggenburgs are the goats that everybody thinks of,” Binion says. “They’re brown, with white markings, and they look kind of like deer, but all Toggenburgs must look alike. They must all have the same exact markings.”

Alpines, Oberhaslis and Saanens are all Swiss breeds, but each has different coloring standards. Alpines, for instance, can be any color, where as Oberhaslis must be red with black markings, and Saanens must be all white.

Lamanchas, an earless breed, and Nigerian Dwarfs, a miniature breed relatively new to this country, can both be any color.

Binion says there’s no rhyme or reason to these standards. “These are just the standards that somebody a long time ago said, ‘Oh, I like the way this goat looks,’ and this is just what they developed,” he explains.

Aside from traveling the country winning shows, the farm also produces milk and cheeses, which the owners sell or give to friends.

“Some of (the goats) produce high butterfat, some of them produce high volume,” Binion says. “So if you’re in a cheese-making business, you want high butterfat. If you’re in fluid milk business, you want high volume. Some goats are middle of the road, so you’ve got good volume with good butterfat.”

“The residents loved it. Nurses from other floors would come up to get their ‘kid fix,’ they called it”

The goats don’t benefit only the farm, however. Donna, who used to work at Champlain Valley Physician’s Hospital, would bring the goats in to see patients. “The residents loved it,” she says. “Nurses from other floors would come up to get their ‘kid fix,’ they called it.”

Donna is also co-editor of the National Toggenburg Newsletter and the New York State Dairy Goat Breeders Association, both of which have won national contests for newsletters.

“It keeps us busy,” Donna says. “We really enjoy it; it helps keep the club together.”
Animal lovers all around, Binion and the Pearce’s also care for four dogs, including a 210-pound Mastiff named Reggie and a Great Pyrenees named Navajo; an Appaloosa mare and its filly; chickens; two house cats; an unknown number of barn cats; and two llamas who watch over and protect the herd.

“They can kick like a mule,” Glen says of the llamas when they’re provoked. One of the llamas, Tony, watches over the kids of the herd.

Binion says the herd has traveled to hundreds of shows over the past 20 years, and “most of the goats have been all around the country at one point in time.”

Donna finds a real passion in breeding and showing goats, and enjoys traveling and meeting new people at each competition. Aside from creating various goat cheeses, such as apricot pecan and garlic spreads, her next project is learning to make goat soaps. “It’s a work of love, of crazy,” she says. “You have to be crazy to do it, but it’s definitely a work of joy.”

Have you ever tried goat cheese?