Limerick Lanes Farm

Welcome to Limerick Lanes Farm

our rural home and hobby farm on

"the road less travelled"

Located in Eastern Ontario

opposite the Limerick Forest

Home of

Limerick Lanes Pygmy Goats

Pygmy Goats

Perfect for Pets and Show

Ideal for all ages to handle,

for small rural acreages, for 4H projects

and, producers of 6% butter rich milk

Grandma and Charlie Brown

Gimme a little kiss, will ya "Gran" ?

Sunlight Limerick Lumberjack

"Jack" - 4 months - July, 1996

We are very proud of our registered,
pure-bred buck, "Jack"

His dam was:
"Sunlight Bingo's Sprite"

Sunlight Limerick Lumberjack

16 months - July 1997

Born: March 7, 1996

His sire was:
Permanent Grand Champion
"Dewey Meadows Eddie"

Breeder: Mary Lou McMillan, owner of Sunlight Farm,
R.R.#3 Dutton, Ontario N0L 1J0

Henny, Pepper, and Mocha Spring Sun Snoozing	Charlie Brown and Spring March 1997 - 3 days of age
Dusty and Snow July 1997 - 2 hours old	Charlie Brown, he's a clown... Break a leg, Charlie Brown ! - July 1997

Our Newest Arrivals

Snow and her New-borns
April and Mr. Chips
Barely 30 minutes old
Still trying to get the wobble out of those legs
April 1, 1999

The Pygmy Goat Herd Book was opened in Canada May 1, 1983, and was closed in May of 1985. This was the official recognition of the breed's popularity in Canada.

HISTORY of the PYGMY GOAT

"About ten thousand years, goats were domesticated in the area which is now Iran, Iraq and Israel. By five thousand years ago goats were widely distributed in Egypt. It is believed that pygmy goats moved up the Nile River, where they are shown in ancient rock art, and across the Sudan. They gradually were taken south toward the equator into the regions where they are found today.
Researchers who have studied them believe that these small goats, which are kept by numerous tribes for meat, are small both because they came from ancestors selected for small size while gradually adapting to a stressful, hot, humid climate and because individual animals are stunted during growth by that same climate.
"American Pygmies are closely related to each other and have been here for a comparatively short time. Thirty generations is not a sufficient time for much natural genetic change to have taken place (although human selective breeding for specific traits may have had an effect). Therefore, if they have changed (and there is some indication that they have got bigger), these changes may be due to the influence of a better environment than they had in Africa."

(Partial quote taken from a paper put out by Ruth Smelser, Geography Dept., Texas ARM University, College Station, Texas 77843, who is doing a study on Pygmies across Canada and the USA to see if where the Pygmy is raised has a significant effect on adult size).

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

"The Pygmy Goat is genetically small, cobby, compact. Its frame is clearly defined and well angulated; limbs and head are short relative to body length. Full barrelled and well muscled, the body circumference in relation to height and weight is proportionately greater than that of other breeds. The Pygmy Goat is hardy, alert and animated, good natured and gregarious."

NPGA (USA)

"The Storm of the Century"

Memories of Ice Storm '98 at Limerick Lanes Farm

The Single Worst Natural Disaster In Canadian History

Limerick Lanes Farm - January 6, 1998 - Day Two
After the first two of four days of freezing rain, hydro and telephone
power lines dangle and sway dangerously low above the height of the
ground but, both services had already been dead for many hours.
We were on our own for twelve consecutive days without power.

It began on January 4, 1998 and lasted for four days.
Passing through in two waves, it was separated by a brief respite
of three to four hours duration midway between the waves.

At Limerick Lanes Farm - January 6, 1998 - Day Two
During the brief midway lull in the storm

When it finally ended, the weight of hundreds of tons of solid ice,
many inches thick, coated our entire part of the
world in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec.

An electrical power grid, more than 100, 000 square kilometres in size,
supplying millions of people, was completely crushed, leaving us
in the dark and the cold of the very worst part of a Canadian winter.

There were no lights, no heat and, in the rural areas, no running water
or sewage, where many people must rely on wells and septic systems.
Airports, bus and rail service were completely paralysed.
Many roads were impassable, closed by downed wires and fallen trees.
Stores and post offices were shut down, the banks were closed and
their automatic teller machines were useless without power.
Service stations were unable to pump fuel.
Telephone service was non existent or, sporadic at best.

The modern world, as we know it, came to a sudden crashing halt.

Looking like snapped toothpicks, miles of hydro poles and
their tangled lines littered the hard frozen landscape.
Incredibly, hundreds of massive hydro towers crumpled
down upon themselves under the awesome weight of the ice.

An immense disaster area and state of emergency were soon declared.

Mother Nature, at her worst, on a massive winter rampage...

Day and night, with ear-splitting noise much like grenades, bombs
and artillery firing nearby, entire trees, some on our property
more than a century old, split down their middles to the ground,
tore completely from the earth, roots and all or, quite literally
exploded and shattered to kindling wreckage within seconds.

At Limerick Lanes Farm - January 6, 1998 - Day 2 - The Lull in the Storm
The remains of what once was a beautiful young 25 foot Maple tree
and, very sadly, all that remained of a rare 50 foot tall Elm tree.

Huge trees, their branches shattered and stripped to stubs,
some impaled, spear like, three feet in the frozen ground by the
weight and force of their fall, stand skeletal against the distance.

Canadian Armed Forces were mobilized to assist Provincial and Local police forces in door to door searches for people in need of any and all assistance.
Many thousands of persons were forced to abandon their homes to seek refuge in rapidly organized emergency shelters across the entire region.
With temperatures plunging to -25°C and more at times, the immediate need was for warmth, food, drink and dry habitation for everyone.

The toll of suffering and loss among wildlife and domestic farm animals alike was pitiful and defies calculation.
Thousands died of inflammations, hunger and exposure.

Farming families suffered incredible hardships in their heroic
attempts to sustain the lives and welfare of their invaluable livestock.
Despite the trials of the people, herds of dairy and beef cattle, goats, swine, flocks of sheep and poultry still had to be watered and fed and, in the case of dairy cows and goats, milked twice daily... all without the benefit of electricity to power machinery and, in the dark and the cold.

The damage to the area's forests was devastating.
Maple sugar bushes and evergreen tree farms, some generations old family concerns, lay in ruins.

First Saturday in February, 1998 - Keeping a sharp watch overhead,
we are finally able to get into our bush lot to survey the devastation.
When you consider how long it takes to grow a tree, the region's
forests were a heartbreaking sight... Mother Nature's war zone.

Limerick Lanes Farm - Easter Weekend - 1998
Hardly a mature tree in the forest that hasn't been "topped" by the storm.

Limerick Lanes Farm - September 1998
The cleanup in the forest has been underway since early spring.
We're estimating five years to finish, if Mother Nature co-operates.

P.E. McCabe 99