Yes, we do things a little different at Ghost Dog Dairy. We believe in the power of grazing animals within a complex and regenerative farm system. Instead of inputs and outputs, we focus on first creating a healthy living system, and then capturing a “slice of the abundance” to pay the bills and keep going. As with any ecological system, increasing biodiversity and complexity on our farm is a sign of improvement and resilience, as long as that complexity does not break us…
Our farm is a family-scale goat dairy combined with a couple acres of annual beds where we rotate garlic. We typically have 45-75 goats here depending on time of year. We grow hay and straw bedding on around 50 acres of owned and leased fields, all of which are certified organic. We extensively run our dairy and meat goats in the “hedges and edges” where a diversity of pasture and browse is available in the grazing months. In the winter our goats eat dry hay, garlic stalks and softwood clippings that we bring to the barn. We also feed (locally grown) organic whole grains soaked in water and apple cider vinegar.
