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Common Sense Solutions - Starting Now

Urban Goats

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It's Getting More Goat Friendly

It's now legal to farm goats in cities like Chicago, Portland, and Detroit -- and campaigns are raging to change ordinances in places like Denver and Hillsboro, Oregon.

In some cities like Berkeley, CA there are old laws still on the books that allow for urban goats. Homeowners Jim Montgomery and Mateo Rutherford decided to take advantage of a 1918 ordinance that allows for 2 female goats and kids.

Today their goats provide more than enough dairy for their household (they make their own cheese and yogurt) as well as fertilizer for the garden.

Mateo Rutherford explains that urban goat keeping is best done in a goat dairy collective. They have to be milked every 12 hours, and he's got a system down. His "goat apprentices" take milking shifts and keep half the milk.

"I can't imagine gardening without animals. You can't buy soil that fertile. You have to make it, and the animals allow us to do that."

He described the cyclical agriculture. "There is no such thing in nature as waste. The waste from the garden goes to the goats. A goat is a 24- hour composter. Our garden's trash is our goats' treasure and our goats trash is our garden's treasure"

--Bibi Farber

This video was produced by Fair Companies