FODDER FOR THOUGHT
New book reveals the cultural ups and downs of the goat
Most of us know the basic history of goats in America. The first goats were brought by Spanish explorers to the New World, where they proliferated in the American Southwest. Then early English set- tlers brought their dairy goats to the East Coast. His- tory then takes a big jump to the 1990s with the import of meat goat breeds like Boers and Kikos. But I recently learned that our humble livestock had a more profound impact on American culture than I ever imagined. Goats were a mainstay in the early days of the colonies. They were easy to transport, were prolific and provided milk as well as meat. Early settlers had thousands of goats with most of them running free in America’s growing cities. These numbers soon made the small livestock unpop- ular in urban areas as they began destroying fruit trees and other crops.
In 1642, the city of Boston banned goats entirely
and in 1650, Warwick, Rhode Island, made it legal to kill goats that wondered into town. By the 19th century, even San Francisco res- idents were complaining about roaming herds of goats. The problem was alleviated some as America’s cattle population
BY TERRY HANKINS Goat Rancher editor
steadily increased and replaced the goat as a meat and milk source. But the goat’s reputation was due for a revival.
In the mid-1800s, the U.S. experienced a boon in distilled spirits with new technology that allowed large-scale produc- tion. The distilling process produced tons of spent grains. To boost profits, distillers built barns and fed the grains to dairy cows to produce milk on a com- mercial scale.
The trouble was, a diet of nothing but distillers’ grains produced unhealthy cows and watery, poor quality milk. Producers added chalk or plaster of paris to thicken their product. It was also thought that dis- eased cattle were spreading tuberculosis through their milk. Consumers turned to goat milk with many in- stitutions touting it as a treatment for TB. These are just a few of the many insights I learned with the September release of Goats in Amer-
ica: A Cultural History by Tami Parr. Her earlier works include Pac- ific Northwest Cheese: A History. Tami’s incredible research includes a six-page bibliography. The 229-page paperback book is available for purchase at
www.goatrancher.com/store. n
4 Goat Rancher | November 2025
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