Rowlf, an angora buck, takes ‘er easy in the sun.
A couple of “fiber boys,” neutered male alpacas utilized solely for fiber, mug for the camera.
Lisa Ferguson, right, owner of Laughing Goat Fiber Farm and the president of LocalFiber, talks with a customer during an event on the Ithaca Commons near her farm in upstate New York.
Golden Grove Farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York is working to bring Navaho Churro sheep to the Northeast. Yarn spun from the sheep, considered a rare breed in spite of, or perhaps because of, its adaptability and hardiness, displays natural earth tones without the need for dying.
Sheep farmer Jessica Krueger, right, of May Apple Farm in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., is also a math teacher and says she schools her students on how she uses math to mix primary colors for her dyes.
Laughing Goat Fiber Farm owner Lisa Ferguson cradles Herring, an angora goat.
Ivory, a cashmere goat and the “herd queen,” trots out from her dominion in the shade to see who’s visiting.
Angelica St-Laurent hand-spins a combination of yak down, silk, Merino and California variegated wool into yarn, going for a forest vibe as well as some elasticity.
Marscapone, a cashmere goat, holds a regal pose.
Rowlf, an angora buck, takes ‘er easy in the sun.
Marscapone, a cashmere goat, holds a regal pose.
ITHACA, N.Y. — Lisa Ferguson wasn’t always a goat farmer.
The former full-time network engineer and Laughing Goat Fiber Farm owner’s furry foray began with a passion for knitting and working with natural materials — and eventually a small goat herd — on a small farm in Troy, Ohio.
In 2000, Ferguson and her husband, Gary, and their kids — both human and animal — moved to a 48½-acre farm in Ithaca.
A couple of “fiber boys,” neutered male alpacas utilized solely for fiber, mug for the camera.
On a warm summer afternoon while touring the farm, located just a few miles from downtown, Ferguson quipped that if you observe how curious, clever and mischievous young goats are, you’ll know why they’re calle d “kids.”
While initially alpacas — South American camelid mammals not to be confused with the larger llama — were too expensive to consider, Laughing Goat Fiber Farm now hosts five neutered alpaca males known as “fiber boys,” an industry term for the animals typically sold at a reduced price and utilized solely to be sheared.
Lisa Ferguson, right, owner of Laughing Goat Fiber Farm and the president of LocalFiber, talks with a customer during an event on the Ithaca Commons near her farm in upstate New York.
“We actually joke that, because they have a top knot and long lashes and everything, they look like a boy band, and (Fiber Boys) would be the band’s name,” Ferguson said.
“When I talk about the alpacas, I always talk about two funny things they do. One is that they make community pooping piles. That’s useful, in terms of management, because they’re not spreading their intestinal parasites all over the pasture.
“The other funny thing is, they love the water. They like to be hosed down. I have one that will turn in circles when you bring the hose out. And that’s great, that’s a fun thing, but I can’t keep a stock tank on the ground. I have to elevate it.”
Ivory, a cashmere goat and the “herd queen,” trots out from her dominion in the shade to see who’s visiting.
Golden Grove Farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York is working to bring Navaho Churro sheep to the Northeast. Yarn spun from the sheep, considered a rare breed in spite of, or perhaps because of, its adaptability and hardiness, displays natural earth tones without the need for dying.
Managing intestinal parasites is a big deal, Ferguson said, one of the biggest challenges for a farmer raising small ruminants. She said she prefers to study the behavior of her animals and apply sound management practices such as rotational grazing rather than over-inoculating, which can lead to parasite and pathogen resist ance.
With Gary still working full-time for the Downtown Ithaca Alliance and helping out on the farm when he can, Lisa has her hands full keeping her cashmere and angora goats — as well as one sheep and her fiber boys — happy, healthy and shorn.
“Angoras originate from the high mountains of Turkey, and the name for their fiber is ‘mohair,’” Ferguson said of the fast-growing coat that averages about 15 inches per year.
Cashmere, part of a goat's winter coat under protective "guard hairs," grows much slower and seldom gets more than 2 1/2 inches long, she said.
“Cashmere is not an actual breed yet. We’re working on making it a breed, but it’s actually a type of goat. The definition of a cashmere goat has to do with the body type and also with a number of characteristics with the fiber. Cashmere fiber has to be at least an inch and quarter long, it has to be under 19 microns in diameter, and it has to have a certain curvature to the fiber.
“If you take a goat that has been tested as cashmere and you breed it to another goat that’s been tested as cashmere, your odds are getting better and better that you’re going to have cashmere offspring, and that’s where I’m at.”
Breeding animals for sale has also become part of the mix.
“I didn’t start out that way, but I kept having people asking me if I sold any, so I finally started to build up a good collection of females that I could breed,” Ferguson said. “And so now we do that every year. It’s very stressful.
“Three years in a row, I had a doe die from a pregnancy toxemia. In goats, the way that that happens is that it’s a nutritional problem ... with not enough protein to sustain the pregnancy. They start burning fat and then somewhere in there they lose their appetite. And if you don’t get them past that really fast — the vet told me that even if they go to the vet hospital, 80% of them die.
Laughing Goat Fiber Farm owner Lisa Ferguson cradles Herring, an angora goat.
“We didn’t have one this year, so I felt really good about that. I think the reason is because — I feed them a lot of grain, especially when I know there are multiple births coming — th e vets analyzed my feed and they said ‘It’s not ground fine enough, so you don’t have enough surface area for the rumen bacteria to work on.’ So, we asked the farmer that I buy from to put it through the roller one more time. And so now we’re getting something that’s much finer. It’s not dust, but it’s definitely finer than what we had ... More surface area, and they are doing so much better.”
Angelica St-Laurent hand-spins a combination of yak down, silk, Merino and California variegated wool into yarn, going for a forest vibe as well as some elasticity.
Sheep farmer Jessica Krueger, right, of May Apple Farm in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., is also a math teacher and says she schools her students on how she uses math to mix primary colors for her dyes.
Ferguson and her husband initially both held off-far m jobs while transitioning a hobby into a viable business. About 15 years ago, they sold development rights on 41½ acres to Ithaca.
“I think it increases the property value,” Ferguson said. “Now my neighbors know they have pastures in front of them for 99 years. When we bought the property, it was $500 an acre, and it was recently appraised at $5,000. I don’t know how people starting out farming are gonna do it. It’s just awful.”
Early on, the farm branched from producing yarn to finished woven and knitted products, including socks, mittens, blankets, bags and hats, marketed online at laughinggoatfi ber.com and in an on-site gift shop. The farm also books tours as well as campsite accommodations through hipcamp.com. A bank of 68 solar panels installed four years ago helps manage energy costs.
“At the same time that we put the solar panels in, we also switched off of propane to heat pumps,” Ferguson said. “So we have a heat pump furnace, a heat pump water heater and a heat pump clothes dryer. This time of year you’re building up a credit, and then you draw down on it in the winter. We always still send them money, b ut a lot less now.”
The anticipated payoff is four more years, she said.
In spite of all t he hard work and long hours, Ferguson wouldn’t trade her 24-hour-a day job for her former day job. As if that’s not enough, she is also president of LocalFiber, a group created to bring together the small-flock fiber producing community of the Finger Lakes and Central New York regions.
“I have a lot of goats this year, I think I have 85, which has been a lot for me to manage to get them out on pasture,” Ferguson said. @LF
Have you ever dreamed of being a flying trapeze artist — the kind you’d see at a circus? Me neither, but I tried my hand at it recently anyway.
LEONARDTOWN, Md. — The sound of excited children, buzzing clippers, bleats of lambs, and squeals of pigs filled the air on the opening morning…
Dan Sullivan is the Digital Content Editor for Lancaster Farming and a former editor and writer for the Rodale Institute’s NewFarm.org and Organic Gardening and Biocycle magazines. He can be reached at dsullivan@lancasterfarming.com or 717-428-4438.
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