How Goats Have Changed My Future Outlook

I'm a firm believer that everyone grows up carrying something with them they just never put down. Like magnets pulling at opposite poles, I think humans forever swing toward the things their hearts most call to.

For me, none too surprisingly, that thing has always been horses. I really never heard growing up from anyone that "All little girls love horses, you'll grow out of it." Maybe it was because I was so obsessively enamored, or that all my model horses had full show names and disciplines, or maybe it was because I had a little more knowledge than you would expect from the normal, weird, standard, horse girl of elementary school. I didn't get to start taking lessons or really getting my hands on horses regularly until I was about 10 years old, but when my feet hit the ground they hit the ground running.

"BRING ME A QUARTER WITH HASTE!" 

But as with all things there are also strata to my obsessions, and as I grew older it was clear that while horses were my primary love and focus point, beneath that was a whole slew of agricultural interests. My grandma would take me to the fair and sit with me for hours watching livestock shows, take me to smell Tobacco plants hanging, a foray through the hay to judge their quality and read forage analysis tags. We'd walk through the vegetables and fruits section and she'd quiz me on what each item was, and I'll never forget one of my proudest childhood memories when a 4H leader doing the same with his kids asked which county I was with. 

"I'm not with 4H. I go to school in Downtown Louisville." 

The shock and admiration he had made my heart swell. No I didn't live on a farm, but we did have a tomato plant in the front yard of our little German Town shotgun, and I could still go to the Horse Park for my birthday every year and ride trail horses for an entire day, or go to the Zoo and pet a goat, and in some ways that was enough. 

At some point I really got to wanting cows. I love cows. Dairy cows to be specific. Not that there's anything wrong with the beef varieties of course. There's just something about the big, brown, doe-eyed look a Jersey Cow has that lures you in and gives you memories you never made of sitting on the porch in summer time or smelling hay in the loft. Jersey Cows aren't the biggest milk breeds, they're a little more refined and feminine, but they have big eye lashes and big black wet noses and are just about the cutest, if not awkward, critters you'll ever see. 

So I started looking more into Jersey cows. They were lower producers than say Holsteins (Black and whites) but with a higher butterfat content to their milk, making it a bit richer and more full flavored. Because they were lower producers they were a little more simple for a small homestead to manage, and their quiet and not flighty dispositions made them a great option for beginners. 

She's beauty..She's grace... Her sandpaper tongue will lick your face. 

But man Cows are expensive... Like... No they're not horse expensive but they're still pretty expensive. They're big. They eat a lot. They produce a LOT. And there's no where in my relative area that can pasteurize or process milk where I can sell it for other people to enjoy. What, you think me and Max are going to drink two to three gallons of milk a day? And process it all on the stove?? Well I love Milk but that's a stretch even for me, and poor Max is lactose intolerant so.. Fat chance of that working on a large scale. 

But as the years went by I continued to be persistent.

"We can scale back from 12 and just start with one."

"I can home pasteurize."

"I can make milk products with the excess."

"We can feed off extra milk to a pig." 

"Okay, we can look into a Mini Jersey." 

Not that those weren't still options, but they weren't options that satisfied the need I was truly trying to fulfill, which was that of having a self-sufficient, money making, homestead and agribusiness. I like efficiency. I enjoy the task of trimming the fat from every corner to make any and everything as stream lined and seamless as possible. If I was going to have production animals, they were going to produce and, at the very least, have the courtesy to cover their own feed bill. 

 And then going back to horses... Well somewhere in my growing up I think I just subconsciously realized that a long term career with horses probably wasn't going to work out. Something about mixing business and pleasure. Horses are something that are almost too near and dear to my heart, as if to get a job at say the Horse Park or something similar would draw back the curtain on my childlike wonderment, and that wasn't something I was quite willing to risk.

On top of that, the horse market is always in an interesting place. I say always because it's never still, like the swing of pendulum it lulls back and forth, and no matter at which end it seems to rest it's never quite financially comfortable. The horse economy isn't like the world economy, and it's an outlier from the standard agricultural market. Horses don't outright make money on their own, unlike say a cow or a chicken, or a goat. They provide a service, oftentimes a service that either on it's own doesn't pay anything or begs to have a large investment gambled to get there. Whether that service be as a pet and companion, a show animal, a race horse, a work horse-- whatever else; the income drought is long, and the shower is short, and sometimes the shower just doesn't come at all. There's a saying that comes to mind whenever I think about this and it goes something like "The only way to make a million in horses is to start with a billion." 

This of course doesn't also take into consideration so many other factors. I can't train a horse if my life depended on it. Dogs? Yeah okay. Horses? Nope. Maybe I just have too much of a predatory mindset. I can't break down a horses thought process like I can a dog. Or maybe it's because in general many horses are just flat out smarter than I am. That's a fair bet to make. 

I've done a little tiny bit of teaching and coaching, and it's fun, but not something I'm interested enough/talented enough/trained enough to actually attempt to do as a career. Teaching riding lessons is hard and I am constantly amazed by those that I know who manage to do it so well. 

So there are a number of reasons an Equine Industry career doesn't fit me. Just because you are the most passionate about one thing doesn't mean you have to dedicate your career to that particular topic. I get the most enjoyment out of taking my professional equine knowledge and experiences and applying it to Dexter in my own time. 

Oh and there is a conversation of money and horses and how those two words somehow are interwoven like the unbreakable threads of an heirloom quilt, but I'm not even going to get into that here. 

I mean, really Barn Friend's are just people who share similar amounts of back pain and financial stress 

So where do GOATS come into any of this??? What do goats have to do with careers? Or life? Or anything? 

Enterprise that's where!!!

I like telling people I went to Goat School because it just sounds so damn funny. It took me a long time to be able to really confidently talk about "Goat Stuff," because honestly when you say it out loud it just comes across as being so.. Strange, and random. And not in a "underwater basket weaving" kind of way either. So the question I get all the time these days that I love answering... 

"So tell me what's going on with Goats??"

A LOT AS IT TURNS OUT, THAT'S WHAT. 

I fell into this world of Small Ruminant's (which is the official term FYI, encompassing sheep and goats or small mammals with four chambered stomachs) completely randomly, as is the way most of the best things in my life seem to happen. I was at the Fair with Grammie and glanced at shirts being sold by the KY Sheep and Goat Development Office.  Whenever I go to the fair I like to purchase things from local AG organizations as a show of support, random as they may be. While looking at the shirts being sold a very engaging and energetic woman happily explained each goat breed pictured on the shirts they were selling, and got me caught up in an unexpected conversation before I even realized I was having it. 

"Do you own any goats?"

"I don't! Just a horse, haha.."

"Would you like to own goats in the future?"

"I think I might actually... Maybe one day? Maybe like a couple dairy goats--"

"--Have you heard of the Small Ruminant Profit School we host?!"

"....No....???"

Little did I know, this amazing woman was actually the president of the Kentucky Goat Producers Association at the time. She gave me a leaflet with the basic info about the class, when it started, how to register, etc. When Grammie and I went to lunch I looked at it and thought it could be kind of interesting... Primarily because the very first class was on my birthday. I was always wanting to learn more about different aspects of livestock and agriculture.. And it STARTED on my BIRTHDAY. In the words of The Decemberists " Oh what providence, what Divine intelligence.."

And now I regularly get mail like this.

So what's the appeal of Goats in particular? Originally for this post I had an idea to write all these detailed information about the market for goat meat in the US, and a bunch of statistics with cited references behind them... But then I realized this whole post has kind of rambled on a bit and I kind of doubt you want to hear the entire economical breakdown of the caprine market place. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll talk goats all day long if you want, but I promise to only subject those who are truly interested to that long talk. 

In brief, the Goat Market is booming. Not only is it booming, but it's growing, to be specific. Goat meat is the most popularly consumed red meat in the world, something that probably comes as a surprise to most of us in the West. But think about it... Goats as a species aren't as abundant domestically as say, cattle, whereas in other counties they are abundant and thriving. Goats aren't pasture grazers by nature like sheep and cattle, they are brush browsers. What many farmers consider to be relatively trash land, that is, hilly, brush ridden, wooded and filled with weeds, is a goats paradise. So what does this mean to a starting farmer such as myself? It means getting productive acreage at a premium. As a goat producer I have an advantage over someone who runs cattle because I can buy property that can't grow crops and can't run large ungulates and throw my goats on it and let them be happy as little clams. Scrub land is cheaper than pasture, but that doesn't mean it's useless (Enterprise!). 

Goat meat is also far leaner than beef, with the relative caloric and fat content of chicken, making it a fantastic option for those not wanting to cut high iron, high protein food items from their diet but looking to cut calories. While not particularly well known or popular with Western populations, Goat meat is most consumed by Ethnic populations, such as Hispanics, Muslims, and Pacific Islanders, which when taking into consideration Goats eating habits makes perfect sense, geographically. Demand for Goat meat in the US is so great that we still import roughly 40% of consumed goat meat from other counties such as New Zealand and those in South Africa. That means there's a 40% growth potential within the market just waiting for new producers to step up to. 

All this being said, my personal goals don't end at the direct meat market or the auction floor. Ultimately, with enough time and effort, I would like to be able to produce quality breeding, show and replacement stock. Replacement animals refer to those that are sold from a herd, to producers in order to enhance the quality of the buyer's herd. Good show goats can range in price anywhere from a few hundred dollars a head to $25,00+ for breeding bucks. Well known and successful livestock groups, such as Hummel Livestock, even sell wether's (castrated males, often shown by youth showmen) for anywhere from $3,500-$16,000 and up. Taking into account that a goat's gestation period is 5 months, and that a good doe will have twins, triplets or quads every cycle after her first, that's a lot of potential money out there waiting to be made. 

"Sold at Newton Farms Dispersal Sale for $25,000"

 So maybe goats seem a little weird at the outset. Maybe so, but then again, I've never made to try and convince anyone I'm anything but. Maybe this can give people some idea's though about "Why goats." After a lifetime of longing to be a farmer it's been so inspiring to find an angle of the livestock industry in Kentucky that I feel like I have a pretty good chance at getting on without a lot of capital to throw around to get there. 

I can't say enough for how friendly all the people in this industry have been to me so far. I haven't met or spoken to a single person who hasn't been happy to take their time answering my questions or going out of the way to explain how things work to me. I'm even ecstatic to say that I'm lucky enough to have some opportunities lined up at the end of this month and October to "intern" for a farm in TN who will be showing in the nearby area. I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to have these opportunities and I look forward to getting some first hand experience with showing and showmanship. I can't say enough how proud and excited I am. 

Hopefully this long winded post has enlightened and at least half-halfheartedly entertained some. If Small Ruminant production is something you think you may be interested in or are wanting to know more about, I would encourage you to message me on Facebook or Comment any questions on this post! I'll also leave some links below where you can get more fantastic information on this incredible industry.