WRITTEN BY MIKE COLPO
PHOTOS BY DAVID CALVERT
One should be very careful around goats. It’s not the horns you have to worry about, or their tendency to bound surefootedly around in unpredictable bursts of excited romping. It’s the babies. They are not to be underestimated. You see, it’s those irresistibly adorable babies that make goats a classic gateway animal.
Rare individuals will look at a baby cow and think, “You’d make a perfect pet.” While those folks are out there, most simply don’t have the acreage to make their dreams of husbandry a reality. Horses, pigs, sheep—these all present similar cognitive hurdles. For many, a decision to raise them requires a substantial lifestyle change. But baby goats change the equation. Suddenly, the obstacles seem—not unlike the wee goats—not so big or fearsome. With a baby goat in one’s arms, animal husbandry seems like a damn fine idea.
Folks like Hoofin’ It Ranch’s Kat O’Bryan are aware of the power of small goats.
“One of my favorite things to do after I get home from work is come back here and lay on the ground and play with the baby goats,” O’Bryan says. “In the mornings, my roommate and I will drink our morning coffee and stare out the window and watch the goats jump around and play with each other.”
SIZE MATTERS
O’Bryan started raising Nigerian dwarf goats a little more than a year ago. She chose Nigerians because of their small, easy-to-manage size.
“I like that they are easy to handle and have good temperaments for the most part, even the bucks,” she says. “It’s a lot easier to wrangle a 60- to 80-pound goat than a 200- to 300-pound one.
“As I did more research and got more interested in the milking aspect of it,” O’Bryan says, “I liked the fact that they could produce a decent quantity of milk for their size and also that the milk was sweeter and more mild tasting than some other breeds of goats.”
Already, O’Bryan has added a new buck, Frankie, to her herd. Not to mention a fresh batch of 12 kids, all born this spring.
MANAGEABLE HERD
You might think an explosion of new animals like this would quickly become overwhelming. But it doesn’t seem so. With the 12 new kids, two bucks, and seven does now in her herd, O’Bryan is able to comfortably house all of them in a single barn stall with access to an outside pen. Feed cost is modest, too, at less than $100 per month to cover feed, vitamins, minerals, and any necessary medications for the entire wily bunch.
Practical-minded folks like the lower maintenance costs and requirements that come with keeping goats. Rancher Mark Harbaugh originally started with a few goats as an alternative to herbicide sprays to control his weeds and found them “much easier keepers than large livestock.” Today, he runs Ashton, Idaho’s Goat Mountain Ranch (Weedgoats. com), with more than 200 goats that he uses for an array of innovative grazing projects designed to combat noxious weed invasion. Despite the size of his operation, he cites the same issues as O’Bryan when asked about the biggest challenges of raising goats: “good fencing, keeping domestic dogs away from them, and finding good winter feed.”
MILK IT
Goats have a long list of qualities that make them easy to recommend, but for a local food lover none ranks higher than the idea of a steady supply of high-quality, delicious goat milk. With a much lower lactose level than conventional cow’s milk, as well as a lighter and more delicate butterfat, goat milk is manna to dairy lovers who find cow’s milk hard to stomach. Even better, the presence of unique enzymes in goat milk makes the types of dairy one can fashion from it simultaneously some of the most delicious and easiest to make. Why wait up to a year for your cow’s milk cheddar to find its flavor when transcendent chèvre will take shape on your kitchen counter—overnight while you’re sleeping soundly?
It pays to do your research ahead of time and choose the breed that works for your individual situation.
“Dairy is a different breed of goat, most of which don’t eat weeds well,” Harbaugh says.
His focus of weed control and meat production is reflected in his herd, which is a blend of Boer and Spanish goats, the Boer for their meat, and Spanish for sturdier constitution. Those inclined toward keeping goats simply as pets recommend Tennessee Fainting goats for their gentler dispositions. In our immediate area, those interested in dairy producers seem to favor Nigerian dwarf goats, Toggenburgs, and Miniature LaManchas (a Nigerian/LaMancha cross).
DAIRY BELLES
Among dairy goats, distinctions are based on such factors as quantity of milk produced, timeframe of milk production, and, of course, flavor. Using two of the aforementioned breeds as examples, Toggenburgs are a larger animal with a higher per-animal dairy yield. They will produce milk for about 8 to 10 months after giving birth. Their milk often has a “goatier” flavor that’s well suited for feeding other pets or making aged cheeses such as feta or gouda. Nigerians are much smaller critters with a consequently lower per-animal dairy production, but they are more consistent milkers, sometimes providing milk for up to two years after kidding. Their milk is prized for its high butterfat content and delicious, mild taste that’s ideal for drinking or making homemade yogurt and fresh cheeses. A great place to start for dairy goat questions is your state representative for the American Dairy Goat Association. A full list is available here: Adga.org/clubs.htm.
CAPTIVATING CACHE
Whether you’re interested in goats for weed control, backyard dairy, or simply as pets, they have the power to recommend themselves on personality alone. Back at Hoofin’ It Ranch, it’s hard to have a conversation of more than four sentences before the goats find a new way to regain the spotlight.
Between O’Bryan’s clear love of her animals and the goats’ obvious love of life, my sweetie and I have become intoxicated with these little gateway animals. Somehow, wee goats will be part of our future. Maybe it was the soft grunting of a baby goat as it nuzzled against my chest, or sparkle in my darling’s eye as she watched the goats play, but in midst of a question about breed selection, a little baby leaps straight up into the air, nearly waist high, surprising herself as much as us before tearing off with the other babies to lay siege to a mountain of fresh hay. Watching them, we lose our place in the conversation, the bounding, leaping little critters reminding us that we could stand to give ourselves over to a few more spontaneous explosions of unrestrained joy.
Mike Colpo is an editor for outdoor clothing company Patagonia. His experiments with home cheese making and addiction to dairy have him seriously considering raising his own goats.
