Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Farmer's Market: SeaShine Farm
The Brown family finds that raising kids - goats, that is - can be good business.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 14, 2003
VALRICO -- Julie Brown had a few pet goats while growing up in Montana, so naturally she wanted her four children to have the same.
"But my husband said, 'Well, if we're going to have goats, they'll have to support themselves.' "
Five years after buying their first female goat for about $1,000, Julie and Bill Brown have a back yard full of Boer goats that do indeed pay for themselves.
SeaShine Farm, which operates out of the Browns' 3-acre back yard near Bloomingdale High School, now consists of 12 breeding does and one handsome buck named Kudu, who spend their days lazing and grazing in the grass and brush.
"Most of our friends are engineers and lawyers," Julie Brown said. "And they just think we're nuts!"
For the Browns, the goats are serious business -- and a mark of the growing popularity of goat meat.
The back yard is really a small farm, with a small barn where the goats often go to give birth to their kids. Inside the barn is a baby monitor. Brown keeps the speaker in her bedroom, so that she can hear the whines and groans when a doe goes into labor during the night.
And just to be safe, she often gets up a few times a night to check on a doe close to labor.
Just beyond the barn, Bill Brown has built a play set for the goats, with wooden ramps and a yellow slide.
"My husband, who never built a thing for our children, decided the goats just had to have something to play on," Julie Brown said.
But their children show no signs of envy.
Wendy, 16; Billy, 15; Haley, 13; and Kasey, 11, regularly pitch in, Brown said. And they've named all the goats, from the cuddly newborn "Don Juan" to "Dot," a 4-year-old who is close to labor.
The Browns chose the Boer because it is the only goat bred specifically for its meat. South African farmers developed the breed over several decades, and brought them to the United States in 1993. Until then, farmers were using dairy goats for meat.
According to a 2001 report from Iowa State University researchers, the U.S. goat market is growing 10 to 15 percent a year. Between 1992 and 1997, U.S. goat production grew 80 percent compared to about 3 percent for cattle and 6 percent for hogs and poultry, according to the American Meat Goat Association.
Moreover, Iowa State concluded there are still not enough goats produced here to meet domestic need, which is rising with the continued influx of immigrants from goat-eating regions such as Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East.
In those areas of the world, goat meat is a significant portion of the diet -- curried goat, goat kabob, jerked leg of goat, barbecued goat steaks. It is often served in dishes centered around festival or holiday events, including the feast that breaks the Ramadan fast.
Goat meat retails for about the same as beef, less than $3 a pound for cubes and about $8 a pound for chops. Ethnic restaurants make up more than 60 percent of the demand for goat meat sold in Florida, according to a 1999 study by the University of Florida's Food and Resource Economics Department.
The Browns sell Kudu's male offspring, for as little as $500 or as much as $1,500, depending on size, the straightness of its legs and even its bite. The goats are sold to breeders from Haines City to Fort Myers.
But most of the goats that are slaughtered wind up as food for the Brown family. Brown serves her family goat meat about twice a week, but can't bring herself to butcher the goats herself. So she sends about 10 a year to a Zephyrhills butcher who sends back packages labeled "chops" and "roast."
"We try not to give names to the ones we know we'll be eating," she said. "But I think there is real value in having our kids know where their meat comes from. It doesn't just appear at Publix in little packages."
It's a healthy choice for dinner. According to the USDA, 31/2-ounces of cooked, roasted meat contains 143 calories, 27 grams protein and 3 grams fat. Chicken has nearly 4 grams of fat for 3 ounces.
"Oh, and the flavor is really good," Brown said. "You just have to cook it slowly because it's so lean."
The Browns' business is tucked away at the end of a somewhat rural street.
The goats generate just enough to pay for themselves right now, so the family survives on Bill Brown's salary as a contractor.
"Once the kids are out of high school, we'll move to a bigger place," Julie Brown said. Still, she admits she thinks of the goats as more than just a business.
"I love these goats," she said. "It's like therapy. When all my kids are mad at me, the goats still love me."
SeaShine is at 2810 Brucken Road in Valrico. For more information, call 643-6545.