"A health rule for goat care is to walk the herd every noon through woodland. When trained, they will not stray from their keeper and that herbal and twiggy-eating walk will ensure them great health." 
​-Juliette de Baïracli Levy

"The goat, like its cousin the deer, needs a portion of twigs, branches and bark of woodland trees for healthful diet and suffers in health if deprived of such fare. Goats are not really grazing animals; they, also like the deer, are more of a browsing nature."
​-Juliette de Baïracli Levy

"The milk of such animals is beyond description for the excellent flavour and the vitality that it imparts to the consumer; a great contrast to the flaccid, bitter tasting milk of the tethered, stall-kept animals"
​-Juliette de Baïracli Levy

To Start . . .

Nigerian Dwarf Goats are the perfect homestead animal. If raised the right way, they truly epitomize health and independence. A healthy, strong, and happy heard of dairy goats is just as idyllic as any other idealized picture of farm life. They are the animal that is successful in such a wide variety of different settings throughout the world, and they are  are not easily manipulated to thrive in confinement and on a diet that consists of grain like many other livestock. 

Here at Heart's Pasture, our Nigerian dwarf goats are nature raised. We do not feed them concentrates, chemicals, or animal biproducts, and they have strong health and do not experience problems because of it. We have seen such a wide variety of foods on nutritional labels that seem unfit for a goat and most certainly only deter peak health. Some of them include TBH, pork lard, artificial flavor, vegetable oil, and "roughage products", just to name a few. Most of the grain formulated for goats contains poor nutrition from the cheaply commoditized grains of soy and corn. Almost all goat products include elemental concentrates or fortified vitamins, and some contain medications. Many of these things are biproducts from other industries. After many years of thoroughly reading labels and learning the industry standard, we realized that, in order for our goats to truly thrive, we needed to model their care as closely to nature as possible --and that's what we did!

"The Goat is closely allies to the sheep being an animal of the hills and enjoying rough pasture. Goats are the most agile of the domestic animals, and above all they need abundant exercise for true health"
-Juliette de Baïracli Levy

Principles Developed

We soon realized that no one does what we do. 

"Goats have not been the subject of intensive breeding campaigns to optimize production on a grain-based diet. There are no hormones developed explicitly to improve their production. Not politicized and controlled like cows, they are an accessible and affordable "fringe" livestock. And for counterculture cheesemaking, goats provide excellent milk that responds well to a simpler cheesemaking method"
-David Asher