I recieved a text yesterday afternoon saying that Kelly had sold out. I was later told more and then I read Coltin’s post about the Mike Kelly family selling their entire herd. The Kelly’s had built an unmatched show wether producing herd. They are the ones that introduced POWER to the goat industry. Nobody put more muscle and bone into goats then they did. Non-goat people knew about Mike Kelly and his breeding program.

900 was a legend in the stock show industry, not just show goats, stock show animals, period. He produced more champions than any other sire, and more importantly, his sons & daughters and their progeny are producing for a large number of breeders. I have been impressed how they were always able to keep expanding the limits of what a goat could look like. About the time, you thought others were catching up, they were able to produce a new buck that kept them at the top.

Thompson and I have bought a lot of wethers from the Kelly’s over the years. We’ve won OYE, State Fair (several times), Enid and numerous premium sales at OYE, Tulsa, Phoenix, Denver, Enid, Woodward, etc with wethers from there. We’ve joked that Thompson helped build part of the additions to Mike and Susie’s house with all of the wethers that he has bought over the years.

Susie is the best at bottle feeding babies. And she makes a killer good banana pudding. Mike is a true expert in the art of feeding and fitting a show wether. They are the ones that taught the rest of us about “Kelly clipping” a goat.

Congrats to the Kelly family for a job well done.