About
Lamp Oil Farm was born out of the extension of my husband's family and farming background. We built our home on the backside of his families 100 acre farm. He grew up raising cows, pigs, chickens and what ever else was needed to sustain his family. We met and were married in 1985 but with a growing family, we weren't able to get back to the farm until 1998. We began simply with chickens and then decided to enter into the Whitetail deer industry in its infancy. Pa had very few deer farms at the time and we bought our first buck fawn, John Deer, and kept him in our basement until he learned to climb the stairs and roam around the house. After a steep learning curve in the deer industry, I thought it would be "fun" to add some dairy goats to help offset the expense of feeding fawns raw goats milk. We started with a bred Nigerian Dwarf doe that my father and I drove to Maryland to pick up and brought her home in the back of my mini van in 1999. At the time, Nigerians were a novelty and they were hard to find. Sunflower, gave us twin doe kids. We then purchased our first buck and another doe and the rest is history. Once our kids were old enough to join 4H, and we began going to different shows, I fell in love with the LaMancha breed because of their distinctive look and gentle nature. So, we soon added some LaMancha Dairy goats as well. Sheep came along by way of an essay contest with the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on the importance of keeping Heritage Breeds of sheep, my daughter entered and she won a Coopworth ewe from a family in Maine, later a friend gave us 2 Cotswald ewes they weren't able to take with when they moved. We raised them for a few years until, for my 25th wedding anniversary when my husband and I traveled to England (this is where the name of our farm originated from, more about that later). My husband's family immigrated here from England, and after several years of researching his family tree we decided to visit and meet with a cousin in Nottingham. We visited Cotswald and the North Country and absolutely loved it. We noticed an interesting breed of long wool sheep with a black nose and ears and long curly locks. I found out the name of the breed was Teeswater. Upon returning home, through some research, I found a breeder here in New York, We purchased a bred ewe and 2 other ewes. Over the years, we have added and subtracted a menagerie of different species of animals including Angora goats and rabbits, a male Alpaca named Sylvia (another story for another time) horses, ponies, variety of other types of rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, peafowl, Livestock Guard dogs and a few cows and pigs.
Now about the name Lamp Oil Farm. When we first bought Nigerian Dwarfs we needed a farm name to go on the registration papers. We first went with Homestead Farm, and kept that for a few years. Then, when Nigerians were entered into the American Dairy Goat Association, that name was taken and I needed to come up with a different name, so we went with Sunflower Farm (after our first doe, Sunflower) but that didn't seem to fit us either. So back to when I was researching my husband's genealogy I came across his great great grand mother, Elizabeth. She was a lamp oil delivery person (for lack of a better term). She went about town by way of horse and cart and delivered oil to light the lamps in their homes. The Lamp Oil Lady. Viola' I had my new farm name.
Now about the name Lamp Oil Farm. When we first bought Nigerian Dwarfs we needed a farm name to go on the registration papers. We first went with Homestead Farm, and kept that for a few years. Then, when Nigerians were entered into the American Dairy Goat Association, that name was taken and I needed to come up with a different name, so we went with Sunflower Farm (after our first doe, Sunflower) but that didn't seem to fit us either. So back to when I was researching my husband's genealogy I came across his great great grand mother, Elizabeth. She was a lamp oil delivery person (for lack of a better term). She went about town by way of horse and cart and delivered oil to light the lamps in their homes. The Lamp Oil Lady. Viola' I had my new farm name.