About Us
Welcome to Black Ridge Katahdins
- We are a farm located in Deer Park Wisconsin, which is approximately one hour east of the Twin Cities in Western Wisconsin. My name is Mike Ninke and I purchased this land in 1991 along with my wife Carla Ninke. We purchased this land with the intent to build a family farm, which we quickly watched our dreams turn into a reality with hard work and dedication. In the Spring of 1992 we had completed our first barn, it was a 16 stall stanchion barn and a month later purchased our first 16 dairy cows. The following year we built our house and new freestall barn, at this time we also started purchasing our first red and white registered holsteins. Over the next decade we expanded our registered red and white holsteins to 72 dairy cows. While we were getting established and growing our herd we had decided to start growing our family having four sons and one daughter. By 2005 we had a rolling herd average of over 29,000 lbs of milk, being one of the top herds in Wisconsin. In 2009 we sold our beloved dairy cows and continued to raise our 30 head of beef cattle for seven years as we took off farm employment. In the fall of 2017 we sold the beef cows, for the next couple years the farm sat empty besides my wifes small group of chickens, we have always had a passion for agriculture and just having chickens did not suffice. In the spring of 2019 we purchased our very first black and white registered Katahdin (Philly) and fastly fell in love with the black color and formed Black Ridge Katahdins. We started purchasing and breeding black Katahdins, In the spring of 2022 we welcomed our youngest son Aric in to have 50% ownership with my wife and I. As of today we have purchased and put together a great herd of foundation ewes, as well as rams (ram from Doc Kennedy line, check our sire page) from some of the top farms in the United States. We are excited to keep growing our flock and start competing at shows! We will soon have breeding stock available and are looking forward to our first online auction in 2023 giving fellow agriculturists a chance to help grow their own herd. All of our sheep are currently enrolled in NSIP,(National Sheep Improvement Program) we are also members of KHSI, (Katahdin Hair Sheep International) and Eastern Alliance
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