Why Is It Always Goats?

Apparently I’m not the only one with a backup plan that involves goats.

For years, my backup plan has been to move somewhere rural, buy a shack on some land and raise a herd of goats. This backup plan will never be enacted; I can barely keep a succulent alive for longer than a few months and I am not outdoorsy in the way raising a peck of goats on a farm would require. The impulse to throw it all away and succumb to an agrarian lifestyle is nothing more than a rejection of traditional work in exchange for something simpler: why spend my days typing at a computer when I could be wearing sturdy boots and tilling a field? Railing against the meaningless of one kind of work in exchange for something that feels more tangible is a fantasy that feels safe, only because in all likelihood, I will never, ever do it.

Here is a woman who has.

The Women Who Gave Up 6-Figure Salaries to Run Goat Farms

Julie Ann Keiser ran a PR company in Florida, made a lot of money, wore a lot of designer clothing and then decided to throw it all in the trash in exchange for a farm in Oxford, Mississippi and some goats, some geese and a few chickens named Prada, Dior, and Fendi. Keiser’s move was motivated by a general feeling of emptiness, or, to put it in clearer terms:

Keiser’s aha moment came one quiet night at her Tampa apartment, when she realized she was simultaneously watching Entertainment Tonight, reading a magazine, and playing solitaire on her phone: “I was trying to distract myself from the fact that I was dying inside.”

Okay! So she bought the farm, got some animals, made a blog(natch)and is also making money. How much money, you ask?

Keiser makes about a third of her former six-figure PR salary picking up graphic design clients from home, and selling milk and cheese at the local markets, and “can’t remember the last time I shopped for something luxurious or even had a real facial.”

Goat farming is not lucrative, even if you’re doing your best to monetize your experience, it seems. Here’s my question: why goats? Are goats easy? Is there a low overhead with goats? Does one assume that if you have two goats and a nice looking farm and a savvy social media strat, you can somehow make money? Nowhere in the dreams of goat-farming is there a dream about making lots of money, but maybe that’s the point.

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