How We Became Crazy Goat People

So how does one become a crazy goat person? Well - if you’ve got a couple you already know the illogical way that goat math behaves. If you’re knew to this whole thing - here’s what happened. We had just bought our “forever” home in a lovely cookie-cutter neighborhood with more garage than backyard. I wasn’t happy - with two small kids (both under 2) I found my heart was happiest outside and so were theirs. I started house hunting again (old habits die hard and we had already moved 4 times - what was one more?) and stumbled upon a rare find. Horse property! I had no idea that for the same price we had bought our house for - we could have land with a barn.

Our first 4 does and one buck. MooMoo, Giselle, Kit-Kat, Kisses, and Rocky with my oldest daughter who was barely 2.

Within a month we were under contract with a house 45 minutes south and I was looking for goats. We weren’t sure exactly what we were going to do with goats - other than keep them as pets and breed them for fun (and to help cover feed expenses) but I knew I wanted them. I had bred goats as a teen and was eager to share all those same experiences with my girls. By luck I found a breeder in the area that had tons of bottle baby goats available for super cheap. Before anyone knew what had happened I was bringing home not one - not two - but FIVE bottle baby goats all a week old. We hadn’t closed on our farm house yet - and so we set them up in the unfinished basement of our current place (I’m sure somewhere it was against the HOA rules - but nothing gets in the way of a girl and her goats). Over the course of the next 3 years we would go from 5 bottle babies to almost 40 registered Nigerian Dwarf and Pygmy goats. We went from breeding for fun - to falling in love with Nigerian Dwarfs and wanting to become a grade A dairy farm. We have moved one more time (this time it really is the final move) and have readjusted our herd goals to focusing purely on Nigerian Dwarfs (keeping the herd under 20 is the self imposed limit we are sticking to…until next kidding season at least! lol). We will be participating in Linear Appraisals and DHIA for the first time this year - and hopefully going to a couple more shows. And that is how you become a crazy goat lady - at least that’s how it has worked out for us.