City mom raising goats for dairy needs
More than once, someone passing by Erin Whitman’s home in the 19th Ward has done a double-take.
Like the guy in the pickup who saw her with something in her yard, backed up, and called out to confirm what he thought he just saw.
“Are those goats?” she recalled him yelling to her.
Hermione and Paisley Moon, to be exact, which Whitman bought in June and have replaced the grocery store as her family’s source of milk, yogurt and cheese.
“I love milk,” the 29-year-old Whitman said. “Dairy products, yogurt, cheese; that’s my favorite food group.”
Initially, she wanted a cow. But she learned those are herd animals, and it wouldn’t be practical or allowed to have more than one on a lot that’s one-tenth of an acre.
She learned that goats also like companionship. But they're smaller, so she put two in her backyard, where she built them a pen and a house.
“This might have been my midlife crisis, but pre-30,” said Whitman, who is married and the mother of two children, ages 3 and 1.
“The youngest one is getting older and for some reason I didn’t think I had enough to do,” she said. “Part of my reasoning was we’re going to be here maybe two more years in the city and might move to a more rural location. Before I bought 10 acres and cows, I thought maybe I should try goats and figure out if I like it or not.”
The first few days were rough and Whitman had no idea how often she’d have to clean the yard. But she said she and the goats have adjusted.
“I love them now. I would be very upset to give them up.”
City homestead
Whitman remembered growing up in southern Louisiana and eating store-bought food while hearing both her grandmothers go on about how when they were young, they had fresh eggs and food right off the land.
“I always thought the way to go was to have food from my own farm, as fresh as I could have it, and that would make a huge difference in taste,” Whitman said.
Through college at Louisiana State University and then her husband’s medical training, she harbored the idea of a more self-sufficient, homestead lifestyle.
“We’ve been moving a lot,” she said. “One day I guess I did wake up and say I’m tired of waiting. Let’s see if I can have something in my backyard.”
It may have been easier to convince her landlord and the city, than her husband.
Dave Stott owns the house where the Whitmans have lived for about two years. “At first I thought it was somewhat comical,” he said. “She made compelling reasons.”
Stott’s grandmother had lived in the 19th Ward, and he owns four properties in the neighborhood. He knew that a few blocks away, a homeowner recently turned his frontyard into a farm. He said such imaginative thinking could make people look differently at city living.
”It’s great to see those things happening in the neighborhoods. I’m happy to be a part of it.”
After Googling “Can I have goats in Rochester, New York” and making several phone calls to city offices, Whitman learned she needed a poulterer's license, which allows for fowl and other animals. The license comes from the police chief, and Whitman’s is one of only two licenses for goats since 2014, according to the Rochester Police Department. (As an aside, there are 30 licenses for poultry and two for miniature horses so far this year.)
Even though the city approved, Stott asked Whitman to check with neighbors.
Michal Adar, who lives next door, said she noticed Hermione and Paisley Moon the first few days when she was in her yard, but doesn’t hear them when she’s inside.
“I think it’s very interesting, I think it’s really cool she’s doing that,” Adar said.
Then there was her husband, Daniel, a resident in internal medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
“I think I rightly knew it was going to be a very large undertaking,” he said. “The startup costs are not negligible.”
Paisley Moon, a Nigerian Dwarf breed, cost $325 and Hermione, half Nigerian Dwarf and half Lamancha, cost $175 from separate breeders. In the first month, they went through four 50-pound bales of hay at $4 a bale. Other feed cost about $15. Whitman said she plans to make some of their feed.
She says people have the idea that goats eat grass, but they forage more than mow. She said she learned they need certain nutrients, which they get from a daily spinach salad with herbs, and sesame seed and molasses dressing.
She said friends are alternately perplexed that she’d go to all this effort, and inspired that she does.
So much for YouTube
While her grandmothers grew up on farms, Whitman has always lived within city limits. She learned to milk goats by watching YouTube.
Turns out, it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
The milking platform made the goats fidgety. Plus, Hermione and Paisley Moon didn’t know her and there she was, grabbing their udders. She empathized, having breastfed her children and having had to pump while she was at work.
She chronicled her misadventures with Hermione and Paisley Moon in her blog, Happy Momma Homestead.
“The first few days were really tragic, really sad,” Whitman recalled. “If there had been an auction across the street at the exact same time I was trying to milk them, I would have given them up right then.”
After she re-engineered the milking platform to fit the goats, all three calmed right down.
Whitman tunes her cellphone to a classical station as she milks Hermione and Paisley Moon, but the chirping birds, bleating goats and hissing of their milk hitting the metal saucepan make their own symphony.“I feel like it’s really relaxing now,” she said.
Whitman milks the goats in the morning and the evening, and gets about 3 ½ cups total each time. Several times a week she pasteurizes the milk, which can be used for drinking, for Greek-style yogurt and for cheese.
She said the goats are laid-back and seem to enjoy hanging out in the yard. "They are very sweet. I was worried they would be a little more active."
She's busy cleaning up after them, saying it's more work than having a dog. The goats eliminate seven to 10 times a day, and she said she doesn't want their droppings to attract anything.
Many of the chores can be done while her husband is a work.
Even though she has the milking down to 30 minutes, it still takes away from their time after the children have gone to bed.
“I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” Whitman said. “I built everything out there. I feel a sense of accomplishment that I actually convinced my husband to let me do all this and I did it. ... I’m very thankful to him — he allowed me to follow my dream.”
Even though it started as a nightmare.
“But it’s really good now.”