Wisconsin Life

(cozy music) -

Voiceover

Drive by this quintessential Door County farm and you'll discover goats under the willow tree. Look a little closer and you'll see Lynne Grasse in the middle of her treasured Nigerian Dwarf Goats. -

Lynne

I think when people stop along the road and you see them peacefully grazing. I think they just kind of look like a walking flower garden. -

Voiceover

This garden is also known as Grasse Acres near Ellison Bay. -

Lynne

Okay, these are my little buds. (goats bleating) They'll follow me everywhere I go. -

Voiceover

Lynne traded in her work with kids in the classroom for a different kind of kids in the barnyard. -

Lynne

I did teach kindergarten for 19 years but instead of continuing on in that field I decided to just do this. -

Voiceover

This has become her passion. -

Lynne

I started with this in about 1997 actually with my three sons. So we got a couple of goats and I thought, "Well, that's a good idea." It will help them to learn to be responsible and respect living things. But as time went on, it was very clear that I was the one that had the passion for them. People will say, "Why goats? "Why do you want goats?" They hear old stories and they think of them as being dirty and stinky. But the bucks are what give goats a bad name because they are stinky. But they are just as sweet and loving as the girls are. Usually at the end of the day my hair is all chewed up and gnarled and I got little hoof prints all over my clothes. (laughs) Don, my husband, is wonderful at making sure that they're fed. And he grows most of their feed that they eat and the hay. With him enjoying the growing aspects and with me enjoying the animal aspect of the farm, I think we make a pretty good team. -

Voiceover

And as a team they care for and nurture their dairy herd. -

Lynne

Now we're good. Alright. Let the milk flow. They have a high butter fat content, so their milk is very sweet and rich. -

Voiceover

The goats' milk is used to sustain a more natural, healthy way of life on the farm. -

Lynne

There it is. Time to eat! (goats bleating) -

Voiceover

It's all good and the baby goats get to enjoy it at feeding time. -

Lynne

And a few too many. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Another one too many. Come here, everybody's hungry. Everybody's starving. So this is a ten kid feeding bucket so I can feed ten of the babies at once. When I first started with the kids I had to do individual bottles. It was hours of work. And now I'm done in minutes. That's the way it works. And the babies are happier too because they get to eat faster. It is a feeding frenzy. (laughs) Oh, look at the milk moustache. -

Voiceover

And the Nigerian Dwarf Goats are getting Lynne noticed. She's now breeding the goats and sending them coast to coast. -

Lynne

Kidding season can happen at any time, day or night. One of the things I have installed was a barn camera. There she is. No babies yet. As soon as they're ready, I'm out there catching babies. -

Voiceover

Her biggest batch of babies found a new home just south of the Wisconsin border at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago. -

Male

First of all we're looking for a really high quality herd that we found up in Wisconsin. And this is the name that kept coming up was Lynne Grasse up in Door County. Here we are with (laughs) 30 kids. And most of them were born in March and April. This was definitely a spring with a purpose. -

Voiceover

It's their gentle nature and curiosity that make these dwarf goats a good addition to the petting zoo. -

Male

She does an outstanding job. She's a very ethical goat herder. You're such a pretty girl, aren't you? Are you such a pretty girl? Yes, you are. They are such a wonderful, peaceful, calming part of my life. They really fulfill something in me. A need to nurture. And when I look out over the pasture and I see them out grazing, it just makes you feel like, "Ya, this is where I want to be." Come on babies. (goats bleating, hands clapping) Come on.