For the Love of Goats

Running a Goat Rescue: What It Really Takes

• Deborah Niemann • Episode 170

Share episode

Got a question? 🤔 

Head over to -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/goat-rescue/  -- and drop it in the comments—so we can reply! 

Description

When people think about animal rescue, they often picture a few animals and a lot of good intentions. In this episode, host Deborah Niemann talks with Deborah Blum, founder of Goatlandia Farm Animal Sanctuary in Sebastopol, California, about what it really takes to run a nonprofit farm animal sanctuary with dozens of goats and more than 150 animals total.

Deborah Blum shares how a simple love of goats turned into Goatlandia, a sanctuary that provides lifelong care for abused, neglected, stray, and surrendered farm animals. What began with just a few goats has grown into a complex operation involving quarantine protocols, disease management, veterinary partnerships, volunteers, fundraising, and constant decision-making about when to say yes—and when to say no.

In their conversation, Blum opens up about the realities of rescue work, including caring for goats with chronic diseases like CL, managing biosecurity, and helping animals recover not just physically, but emotionally. She also shares unforgettable rescue stories, from feral goats found wandering the woods to animals that survived severe injuries and neglect and went on to thrive at the sanctuary.

This episode also explores the behind-the-scenes work that many people never consider, such as building a reliable veterinary team, supporting staff and volunteers, educating the community, and creating sustainable revenue streams to keep a sanctuary running long-term.

Whether you’ve ever dreamed of starting a farm animal sanctuary, are involved in rescue work, or simply want a deeper understanding of what compassionate goat care looks like on a large scale, this episode offers an honest, thoughtful look at the challenges and rewards of running a goat rescue.

Goat Health & Disease Resources

Thanks for tuning in!

If you’d like to support the content you love and help us keep bringing you new goat resources, you can do that through our Tip Jar.

No one ever said raising goats was easy, but it doesn't have to cost a fortune or drive you crazy! You just need the right information.

🔹 Check out Goats 365 membership

🔹 Or explore The Goat Academy

🔹Looking for Deborah's books? They can be purchased wherever books are sold, or you can get an autographed copy on our online store.

Happy goat-keeping! 🐐

Intro  0:03 
For the love of goats! We are talking about everything goat. Whether you're a goat owner, a breeder, or just a fan of these wonderful creatures. We've got you covered. And now here's Deborah Niemann.

Deborah Niemann  0:18 
Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode. I am very excited today to be joined by one of our goats 365 members, Deborah Blum, who is the founder of Goatlandia Farm Animal Sanctuary in Sebastopol, California. Welcome to the show today, Deb!

Deborah Blum  0:33 
Thank you so much, Deborah. I'm super excited to be here. I'm a huge fan of yours, and it's honor to be part of your show today.

Deborah Niemann  0:40 
Thank you so much. So let's just start at the beginning. And I know, you know, there's a lot of people out there with goats thinking, well, this is a nonprofit thing. I'm not making money with my goats. So can I be a nonprofit? And we have answered that question before. We actually got a CPA on the show or actually on a webinar one time, you can find the video on our YouTube channel, and she talked about what it really means to be a nonprofit. It does not just mean that you're not making money with your goats. So I know that's not where you started, Deb, but if you could tell us, like, how does it look when somebody actually does start a nonprofit goat program.

Deborah Blum  1:22 
Yeah. So my desire to start a nonprofit kind of stemmed from, like, basically, just wanting to help. And I think that's, you know, that's probably a motivation for a lot of people that start nonprofits. I love animals. I've loved animals my whole life, so I wanted to do something with animals and for animals. So that's kind of how I started, you know, I kind of think of Goatlandia as the farm animal equivalent of, like the Humane Society locally. You know, we're not that big, of course, but, you know, just being able to provide a safe home to animals that are strays or victims of abuse and neglect, things like that.

Deborah Blum  1:58 
So my impetus was just, I want to be with animals. I want to help animals. And then, of course, it grew into all these other ways that we help the community so but yeah, it's having animals and having a farm is very hard. It's a lot of work, as many people know, but layering a nonprofit on that, it definitely presents some other challenges. But I love it. I feel like we're making a difference in the lives of people and animals, and very happy to be doing what we're doing.

Deborah Niemann  2:23 
Yeah, I'm glad you're doing it, too. So how did you land on the name Goatlandia for your farm animal sanctuary? Did it just start with goats? Or did you think, Oh, well, everybody love goats, so let's put that in the name, or what?

Deborah Blum  2:36 
Yeah, so it just started with goats. So I used to be, well, Ashley's still in my own some restaurants in San Francisco with a partner of mine, and one of our restaurants used to buy cheese from a dairy in Sonoma County, and we did a staff field trip, and I met all these goats, and I just lost my heart, my mind to goats. I was like, I love goats so much. I have to have goats. And that's kind of how it started. So after the field trip, I ended up moving to Sonoma County, and I got my first three goats from this dairy because I was friends with the owner, and I think it was my ex boyfriend, probably, like, 11 or 12 years ago, and it was right around the time that Portlandia was very popular, so he kind of made a joke like, oh, you should call this place Goatlandia. And I started calling it Goatlandia for fun. And then eventually it just became the name of the nonprofit. And I like the name. It's catchy and fun and but we have all species of, well, not all. We have a lot of species of farm animals, so, but mostly goats.

Deborah Niemann  3:30 
So most people might be thinking that you've got like, a dozen goats, or something like that. Could you give us an idea of the scope? How many animals do you have?

Deborah Blum  3:39 
Yeah, right now it's, you know, it's always changing as residents pass away, or we do adoptions or intakes. But right now, while we have 150, tomorrow we'll have 152 because I'm rescuing two chickens, but about I would say 50 to 60 of those are birds, so the rest are all mammals, and most of those are goats. So at any given time we have anywhere between 50 and 70 goats.

Deborah Niemann  4:03 
Yeah, that's a lot of goats. Like we usually have close to 30 and twice that many would I mean, I feel like we have a lot of work on our hands, and twice that many would be twice as much work.

Deborah Blum  4:13 
So it is.

Deborah Niemann  4:15 
Yeah, so one of the things that has always scared me about taking in rescue goats is because they have hidden diseases. They can be asymptomatic in the early stages. So you can bring in a goat that could wind up making every goat on your place sick. So how do you handle that?

Deborah Blum  4:35 
That's a very important and very valid concern. So first and foremost, you know we have different areas of the property where different herds are, in general, before we intake any animal, or sometimes after, depending on the situation. We test every goat, and we test for the three most common diseases, which are CAE, which is Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis, CL Caseous Lymphadenitis, and then Johne’s.

Deborah Blum  5:00 
So I'm really happy we've never come across a Johne’s case, because, as you know, those are just not a very good prognosis at all. But we do have a CL positive herd, so that herd stays in a separate area, separate barn, and basically just through testing, through quarantine, during testing. You know, when we have a CL outbreak, an abscess, you know, an active abscess on a goat. You know, we have a protocol, like, it's staff only that goes in with them. We monitor it daily. We call the vet out to lance it. We have foot baths and all those things. So, you know, CL is a fairly easy disease to manage, as long as you keep an eye on things. But yeah, so that's basically how we do it, testing, isolation and quarantine and just good biosecurity practices in general, lots of hand washing,

Deborah Niemann  5:47 
Yeah, I bet, because that pus is highly infective.

Deborah Blum  5:51 
Interestingly enough, we found that if the animals are happy, healthy and relaxed, we see far less outbreaks. So we recently rescued a doe who was pregnant and she was set to euthanize, and UC Davis called us and said, Hey, will you take this goat? And we did, and she gave birth, and she had an active abscess right around the time of giving birth, which, of course, is the stress on the body of birth. But since then, she's been fine, and we really think it's something that's managed through proper feeding, being relaxed, having their needs met, you know, lowering their stress as much as possible.

Deborah Niemann  6:24 
Yeah, so when you've got the goats with CL, are those goats that are going to spend their life at Goatlandia? Or do you adopt them?

Deborah Blum  6:31 
Most of them spend their lives with us. And we did have one adopter several years ago. I think he had about 15 goats, and then he realized that one of them were positive, and at that point, he just decided, okay, they've all been mixed together, you know? So he treats the whole herd that it's positive. So he took in some goats from us, because some of his goats had passed away from old age. But in general, we really don't adopt those goats out a lot. The only other time that we've placed them is there's a sanctuary in Nevada that has a CL positive herd. So sometimes, if we get a call like, hey, there's a goat that has CL that needs a home, you know, if we're full, which we only have, let's see, right now, we have nine goats that have Cl, you know, we'll defer to them, but yeah, in general, we really don't like to adopt out any animals that have, you know, any kind of handicap of any sort, any kind of health challenge, goats that are really, really old and really need specialized care and specialized feed. Those really stay with us.

Deborah Niemann  7:26 
So I'm sure that you had a lot of surprises when you started, because you were not even originally raising goats, right?

Deborah Blum  7:34 
No.

Deborah Niemann  7:34 
You decided you wanted to start a sanctuary.

Deborah Blum  7:37 
Yes.

Deborah Niemann  7:37 
So what were some of the surprises that you had initially?

Deborah Blum  7:40 
Oh my gosh. Well, there's a lot. I mean, I've never grew up on a farm. You know, I was a suburban kid that lived all over the United States. So one of the biggest surprises was, you know, learning how to muck a barn and learning about farm life. I still remember first time one of my goats. This is when I only had three goats. She hurt her head really badly. She was bleeding, and I had this old 67 Chevy pickup, and my first thought was, like, I have to get her to the vet, you know, and she's a full grown Alpine doe. She's 120 pounds.

Deborah Blum  8:10 
So I put her in the front seat of my pickup with me, and I'm a bench seat, and I'm driving down the freeway with this goat, and I get to the vet office, and the vet goes, and he starts laughing, and then he looks at me really sturdy. He's like, Don't ever do that again. Like, don't ever do that again. Things like that, like the right way to transport an animal, like, all these things were totally new. So those were definitely surprises. But I think the biggest surprise has just been how much I enjoy the medical side of it, like I love learning about care of, you know, all kinds of different animals, but in particular goats and how we can care for them. Like, I never knew that I had such a passion for that side of it, for the medical side of it, so that was a big surprise to me. But also just the ups and downs that come with living and working with animals. You know, there's such great high points, but there's also really tough days, you know, like seeing difficult rescue situations and you know, the compassion fatigue that comes with rescue, those things were a surprise. But then also, like, how much I just love being outdoors.

Deborah Blum  9:08 
I've had so many different jobs, and I love being outside and getting dirty and wearing my overalls and snuggling with animals and being out there in the rain because no one else wants to go out. I just, I love it. I love being close to the Earth, close to the animals so...

Deborah Niemann  9:21 
Yeah, exactly. I totally get that. I love being in nature so much. So I'm sure that you probably, like, your heart tells you that you want to take in every animal. But do you take in every animal? Or, like, what's your criteria for taking in animals?

Deborah Blum  9:38 
Yeah, that's – it's very hard. We get far more requests to take in animals than we have capacity, and most of what we encounter are roosters. Lot of people have roosters. You know, they buy chicks at the feed store, and then one or two are roosters. Pigs - is another common one. So, yeah, we definitely have a limit. I think there's a very fine line between full capacity and hoarding. You know, every farm organization, rescue group, whatever, needs to be careful to be aware of that line and not cross it. And it's a function of space and Labor and Workforce and resources and money all these things.

Deborah Blum  10:13 
You know, when we're full, we're full, and I have to say no, and usually that's me telling the person that does the emails, she's amazing, like, hey, we can't take anymore, and we have to say no. And when we say no, we say, hey, here are some other resources. Here's some other places you can try. It's very hard for me to say no, so I have to kind of build a buffer, you know, I try and think about doing the best thing for the animal, but I also really want to help people. So, you know, we've taken so many animals. We had a case in Marin. The guy had cancer, and he had a beautiful home, but he couldn't care for the animals, and the neighbors were starting to be concerned, and he was end stages of his life. So by taking his goats, not only am I helping the goats, but I'm helping him.

Deborah Blum  10:50 
We had another lady that contacted us, and she was diagnosed with brain cancer, was going to have brain surgery, and she's like, I love my goats so much. You know, I want to know that if something happens to me, and I don't come out of the surgery that they have a home like I choke up thinking about it, because it's just such a vulnerable place to come from, you know, and it's such a beautiful thought. Want to care for your animals that much that you want to plan for them. So by saying yes to her, we're helping the animals, of course, but we're helping her give her peace of mind during a really difficult time.

Deborah Blum  11:18 
So, you know, it's definitely severity of the situation. And you know, how much can we help? You know, there's certainly been some abuse and neglect cases that were very pressing, and we were very motivated to jump in on that. And oftentimes, if those cases present and we don't have space, then we're reaching out to fellow organizations, like, Hey, can we partner up on this? Rescue is really urgent, you know? But yeah, saying no is hard, you know, we definitely can't rescue all the animals out there that need rescuing.

Deborah Niemann  11:44 
I think a lot of people, they might think that, you know, like, Oh, I'm gonna say yes to all the animals, and then I'm sure you probably filled up a lot faster than you expected.

Deborah Blum  11:54 
We did, yeah. I started Goatlandia on my two acre house property, like before I met my husband, I realized very quickly that I didn't have the space for that many animals. Watching the soil degrade certainly was a, you know, an interesting piece of information, but yeah, just knowing that, like, when you take in a young animal, it's a 10 to 12 to possibly 15 year commitment. Yeah, I learned really quickly that, like, I have to be really careful about our numbers – and do adoption. We do adoptions, which I love doing, so...

Deborah Niemann  12:23 
Yeah, that's awesome.

Deborah Blum  12:25 
Yeah.

Deborah Niemann  12:26 
So you're definitely not doing this all on your own. You mentioned somebody helping you with email. Can you tell us a little bit about your staff and volunteers and other people who help?

Deborah Blum  12:35 
Yeah, absolutely. So we're nonprofit, so there's a lot of nonprofits are on a tight budget, so I'd love to have a bigger staff, but the staff I have is fantastic, and everybody works really hard. I have a full time volunteer coordinator who kind of leads the volunteer shifts in the morning and the animal care. She kind of does facilities too, keeps everything clean and neat and tidy.

Deborah Blum  12:54 
I've got a part time administrative assistant who's fantastic, and she's worked for other non profits, which is really helpful, because I haven't. I've got an independent contractor that does our development and fundraising and donor cultivation, which is super important. My husband and I are both volunteers. We're not paid by the sanctuary, so he handles all the construction repairs and maintenance and facilities. So our entire new property, we built everything ourselves. So he oversees the two guys that do that, all the construction and the landscaping and the drainage and, you know, building the barns and things like that.

Deborah Blum  13:29 
And then right now we have two animal care people too that, do you know, health checks. They help with animal care in the morning. And then I have a couple part time people that do tours, you know, during the tour season, when we're really busy, and then volunteers who are the lifeblood of every nonprofit. We have about 60 volunteers right now who come one day a week, usually in the morning, and help feed the animals, but they also help us work events, and there's all kinds of things to do, so the volunteers chip in a lot, and I'm super grateful to them and to everybody on the team.

Deborah Niemann  14:00 
Wow, that's awesome. And I know a lot of people, you know, if you look on Facebook, some people have this crazy idea that you can raise goats without a vet, and when you've got as many goats as you do, and especially when they're coming in under questionable circumstances, a lot of times, I'm sure, you discover very quickly, yeah, you need to have a great team of vets who really know their stuff when it comes to goats. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Deborah Blum  14:23 
Yeah, so when I first started with goats, you know, as I said, I had a friend who owns a dairy, so I was asking a lot of questions from him and from other people I knew. Right now, we have two to three vets that we work with at any given time that are specifically large animal vets. One kind of does all our equine veterinary medicine, and the other two do pretty much everything. You know, everybody kind of has their favorite species and their specialties, so but we do have three vets that are local in Sonoma County that we work with. And then for our birds and our dogs, we have three livestock guardian dogs, and then three pet dogs. They go to a small animal vet, and then our birds go to different avian vets.

Deborah Blum  15:00 
So we're really fortunate to have a really, really good, strong network of vets. And, you know, because we're a farm animal sanctuary, in the past, a lot of vets have kind of, you know, raised an eyebrow or two, like, why are you saving goats? Like, why aren't you eating your animals? So I think it took a couple of years for them to realize that, you know, we really care about animals. We love them and we and that's a common love and interest. You know, we're not on opposite sides, so to speak. And then after working with them for, you know, five to 10 years now, they enjoy working with us, and they, I think they appreciate what we do, largely because we've done the homework and we understand how to do things correctly, still learning, you know, all the time.

Deborah Blum  15:37 
But so I'm really grateful to the vets that we have, and most of the time now, with my level of knowledge, I can kind of get a good idea of what's going on with an animal. If somebody's off, you know, I can kind of triage and say, Well, I think it might be this or, you know, I can draw blood and send it out, or run a fecal but certainly, if anybody's, like, really down, I mean, it's a vet call right away, a horse that's colicking, you know, a goat that's bloating, any kind of dystocia. And I'm also really grateful to be an hour and a half from UC Davis, because they are fantastic, and they have all the specialists there, and they love working with us, because we'll pay to do things on goats that some people want, orthopedic surgery and just really interesting things.

Deborah Blum  16:17 
 So that's a very, very important and I think, you know, one of the things I try and be very careful about is not to self diagnose, like I do not risk my animal's health by guessing what might be wrong if I'm not sure about what's happening, I'm calling the vet.

Deborah Niemann  16:31 
A lot of people don't understand the importance of quarantine when they bring new animals on their farm, and that is even if you're buying from, you know, breeders and stuff. But when you're bringing in animals that are, you know, in a rescue situation, some worse than others, what does your quarantine and possibly rehabilitation and everything look like when they come in?

Deborah Blum  16:53 
Yeah. So we have specific stalls, like a part of a one barn, that we use just for quarantine So, and it has basically a small run out, their own independent stall and a breezeway. So they're somewhat separated from the animals on the other side of the barn, and they stay in there for as long as we feel like they need to, you know, like, if they haven't been tested before they came to us, then they're in there until we get test results.

Deborah Blum  17:16 
And for an animal being rescued is sometimes really, really stressful, like, they don't understand what's going on. They were running around in the woods for the last three years, and now a sudden, they're in this weird place. So quarantine is really important for the obviously, the physical reasons, and the disease prevention and all that. But it's also important emotionally and mentally, to give them a safe space by themselves, to just calm down, to understand that they're safe. And that's really important. You know, we want to create as gentle of a landing for them as we can. And usually in the beginning, you know, animals that come to us, we make it so that staff only. We don't want 60 people interacting with them. It's just a few people, again, to lessen the stress and build a relationship of trust with that animal. So that's kind of what we do.

Deborah Niemann  18:18 
So I was thinking, you know, when I asked the question. I was totally thinking of like, physical health and stuff, but goats have mental health too. And when you said something about a goat running around in the woods for three years, I was like, Oh my gosh. So what does that look like if you get in an animal that is basically feral?

Deborah Blum  18:34 
Yeah, we've had a number, and we have one at the sanctuary now, right now, named Guapo, who that was his case. His owner died. He wasn't running around for three years, but he was running around in the woods for around in the woods for probably seven months after his owner died. And he has these big white horns, and he's really impressive looking. And I thought, oh my gosh, this guy's going to be super aggressive. And it took months for the neighbors to befriend him and catch him. And now that he is at the sanctuary, he's actually a really sweet, old, shy guy.

Deborah Blum  18:59 
But we have another feral goat that a stray, that ended up at the shelter, who's at UC Davis right now. And when I loaded him this morning to bring him up, he was literally shaking. He was so nervous. It was just like, you know, here's this big, huge goat, this buck who smells very robust, and the big horns and the big beard and this poor soul is like shaking, you know. So I'm trying to comfort him. It's such an important reminder that, you know, for these animals, a big change like that can be really stressful if it's something that they don't know, with people they don't know.

Deborah Blum  17:16 
And then, you know, even once we try and integrate them into the herd, oftentimes it's like, okay, now you guys get to be fence friends for two days, and then we'll introduce you and see how it goes. And then that's supervised. And, you know, goats have as many personalities as they have, shapes and sizes as you know. So we're always sorting everyone depending on who's getting along and what's going on. But yeah, we're just very careful with quarantine for all the reasons.

Deborah Blum  19:29 
I volunteered in Wildlife Rehab before I started Goatlandia, they used to teach us how important it is to not interact with wildlife because you don't want them to imprint. And I remember them saying, you know, for a lot of these wild animals, what they're experiencing in the wildlife hospital, like alien abduction, they've never seen a setting like that. They've never seen people up that close. And it's a really important reminder you know that everybody's experience of life is completely different, and you have to just be respectful and be open minded and remain curious and try and make it as easy as you can for that individual.

Deborah Niemann  20:01 
Is there any particular rescue story that really stands out to you?

Deborah Blum  20:06 
There's so many. Yeah, we have one really interesting case right now, and I say case because she just was at UC Davis. We got a goat several years ago who was found in Sonoma County as a stray, and she was hobbling along with a broken leg, and she ended up going to the Sonoma County Humane Society, and they, you know, were kind of like, hey, we do dogs and cats. So they called us, will you take this goat? We said, yes. So we took her in and got her cast it up, and got her leg healed. And she was pretty young goat. I think she was probably about a year based on the size that she was then and is now. She came to us right around the time that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. So we named her RBG in her honor, because she was very feisty and outspoken.

Deborah Blum  20:49 
She just recently, gosh, three months ago, broke another leg. We have no idea how she did it. She came hobbling up to the barn at night, dragging this leg that looked terrible. So, you know, got the vet out right away, ran a radiograph. It was really bad. And I was like, Oh, this is probably amputation. Threw her in the van, took her to UC Davis, and the equine surgeons were like, we would love to operate on her. So 10 screws and two plates later, in three months of wrapping and unwrapping her leg and treating it with everything, she's back healed.

Deborah Blum  21:21 
And the interesting part is, she used to be with the big goats, you know, the big, tough goats, rough and tumble, because we thought of her personality is so strong. After this, we're decided, you know, maybe she needs a little quieter group. So we kind of moved her to another herd that's got some older goats in it, a little bit more chill personalities. And she's actually really fine. I think she's adapted nicely and but it's just such an interesting story of perseverance. And, you know, we have no idea what her story was. We don't know where she came from, but, I mean, she's now the bionic goat. We joke, you know, yeah, it's a really, really interesting story.

Deborah Blum  21:56 
But there's, gosh, there's so many stories, like we got a peacock once from LA who the neighbors lived up against this big mountainside, and there was all these wild peacocks. And this one peacock kept coming into the yard and had an injured leg, and they started feeding it. We ended up taking him, took him to Medical Center for birds, who did operation to try and correct his leg. Just all kinds of situations, you know, I mean, we've taken in a lot of animals from abuse and neglect cases who were really, really thin.

Deborah Blum  22:24 
You know, we have a goat named Abby, who is from Southern California. She was pregnant. Something had bit into her, bit a big hole out of her udder, you know, bit the unborn baby out of her was just terrible. I didn't think she was going to survive. And a friend of mine actually took her and got her to a vet, and they operated on her, and she recovered beautifully. And is at Goatlandia, and she came from horrible conditions, was not being cared for in an empty lot. And now she's like, one of the sweetest goats that we have, like, every morning I open the barn, and she's right there with her head, like, waiting to be pet. And it's like, just so wonderful. Like, the ability animals have to forgive and heal and move forward is just, it's wonderful.

Deborah Niemann  23:03 
Absolutely. So I know you guys also do some education for the community and stuff. Can you tell us about what that looks like?

Deborah Blum  23:11 
Yes, you know, I kind of started Goatlandia because I wanted to work with animals and be around them. But I also decided to start an animal rescue because I made a shift in my own life from eating plant based, and I realized how impactful it can be for our health. And you know, I started studying about the impacts of animal agriculture on in particularly large scale, industrial agriculture on our planet. And I realized that by shifting our diet, even one day a week, two days a week, whatever is very powerful way to take charge of our health and to nurture the planet. And I felt that's such a powerful thing that I really wanted to share it.

Deborah Blum  23:47 
So, you know, we educate people. And I hesitate to use the word educate, because that implies a lack of knowledge. We sort of inspire people to have the knowledge they need, to make choices that are in alignment with what they want, with their goals and their values. So we have a lot of people that reach out to us, you know, I've had friends of mine, you know, because I'm in my late 50s, and they're like, I had a heart attack. My doctor says I have to eat better. How do I do that? You know? And I try and teach them, like, how to adapt their diet and what things are good to eat. And so that's the way we like to serve the community, just through, you know, food. And I love food, so, but also just teaching people, you know, how to live and connect with nature, like you said, and heal. We have an animal assisted healing program.

Deborah Blum  24:28 
So we have people from Becoming Independent, which is an organization that helps adults with disability. They come three times a week to the sanctuary, and they help clean a barn and spend some time with the animals. So, I mean, it's not education, per se, that's more like, you know, it's just healing. It's providing a space and an opportunity for people in the community to come and just be with the animals and be outside and just experience that healing.

Deborah Blum  24:51 
We have a Kids Camp, so we teach kids about goats, physiology of goats and other animals, and you know, how to work in a garden. And how to make things yourself. We teach kids how to sort trash. You know, the environmental message so, you know, just trying to create a better planet, a better future, and promote kindness and compassion, we teach equity and inclusion, and it's just about how we can inspire people to put their actions in alignment with their values.

Deborah Niemann  25:18 
Yeah. So if somebody wants to start a sanctuary, what advice would you give them?

Deborah Blum  25:27 
I would say, Come intern with us.

Deborah Blum  25:30 
No, but seriously, I definitely think having some kind of experience working with animals. Before I volunteered in Wildlife Rehab, I decided I want to become a vet tech because I wanted to help animals. And I talked to my vet, and he's like, it's really hard. You see a lot of bad owners. Go volunteer. So I was like, Okay, I went to go volunteer. And I can't imagine starting Goatlandia without the knowledge that I learned volunteering in Wildlife Rehab.

Deborah Blum  25:54 
You know, it's very different setting, because you're not imprinting, but the handling skills, the zoonotic disease knowledge, all those things were so beneficial to me. So I would say, get animal experience any way you can. I would say, talk to as many people running sanctuaries as you can, because a lot of us have done it. There's things that I wish I knew back then, and I would say one of the most important things is just be realistic. You know, it's very hard to run an animal sanctuary. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of hours and energy, and it takes a lot of money, depending on the size you do it. And I think you can be just as impactful sometimes, supporting the ones that already exist, versus trying to open another one, you know. So which is something I considered, you know.

Deborah Blum  26:33 
I used to support all these other farm animal sanctuaries, and I thought, Do I really want to open my own? I mean, I love having done it, and it's great, but it's definitely a lot of work. So I think it's really important for people to understand the scope of the work and understand, you know, what things are hard about it, and really ask themselves, do I need to start one or am I more impactful just supporting the ones that are already doing it? You know? I think that's really important. And really get in touch with why you want to do it. You know, some people want to do it because they just love animals. That's great. Go volunteer or go do something.

Deborah Blum  27:03 
There's so many things that can be done for animals without trying to start another sanctuary. And also look at the area, you know, like in Sonoma County, we've got three or four sanctuaries. I mean, we're covered, you know, but there's probably other parts of the state or the country that don't have those kind of services available to the community and to the animals in that community, and maybe that's an area of greater need that if you really want to have the maximum impact, that might be the opportunity to look at, you know, so,

Deborah Niemann  27:29 
Yeah

Deborah Blum  27:30 
That’s a whole class unto itself.

Deborah Niemann  27:31 
When we did the webinar on starting a nonprofit or turning your farm into a nonprofit, that is one of the things that the accountant said was that see if there is already somebody in your area doing what you want to do, because starting a nonprofit and running a nonprofit is a lot of work. It is work. Yeah, it's a business. You've got to have, you know, specialized accounting and everything, and you've got to file special IRS forms and stuff,

Deborah Blum  27:58 
And board governance

Deborah Niemann  28:00 
Yeah.

Deborah Blum  28:00 
Whole thing

Deborah Niemann  28:01 
You lose control, because you have to have a board so you're not the person who gets to make all the decisions anymore. And so, you know, look for other people in your area to see if they're already doing it, and work with them.

Deborah Blum  28:13 
One of the things that I would love to set up is a foster program, you know, to build a group of, say, 12 to 20 people that can foster animals for us, you know, like, here's a really urgent rescue. We don't have space, but we have this foster place. Like, I think that's a great way to grow our impact, you know. And I also think it's really important to look at like, other revenue sources, you know, like we did catering for a number of years, and that was a good revenue source. We're actually launching an organic produce farm, so we'll have a CSA program starting in the spring, which isn't a great way to make a ton of money, but I think we'll make a little money.

Deborah Blum  28:46 
But, you know, you also have to think outside the box. You know, you don't want to be supported by like, one or two or three big donors or the founder. You really want to think about, like, okay, what are all the mission related ways that we can bring revenue in to do the work that we're doing? I mean, that's just smart investment and business practices anyway, you know. So think about, what are the opportunities to have a diverse revenue stream, not just donations, you know, agro tourism, selling merchandise, going to events and asking for donations, writing grants, all those things. You know, it's really important to think about all the revenue sources.

Deborah Niemann  29:19 
Yeah, exactly. I know you've got your website, goatlandia.org, and you're also on social media. What are those also? And so Facebook and Instagram are Goatlandia?

Deborah Blum  29:30 
Yep, Facebook and Instagram, yep. Yeah, lots of cute goat pictures on there.

Deborah Niemann  29:34 
So if people want more information, they can reach out to you through one of those channels. And they can also, I assume, make donations through those?

Deborah Blum  29:42 
Absolutely yeah, and right now is our end of year. So it's our really big, you know, fundraising push, very exciting time of year for us. So yeah, we love donations. And, you know, we like to brag about the fact that we do a lot of our work ourselves. So we really spend our donor dollars wisely and very carefully. I'm very fiscally conservative.

Speaker 1  30:00 
So yes, we love getting donations. You know, money donations, but some people bring us food for the animals. There's just all kinds of ways you people can contribute, so, or just liking and sharing on social media. Everything's a help. So, yeah,

Deborah Niemann  30:12 
Yeah, alright. Do you have any final thoughts you want to share before we sign off today?

Deborah Blum  30:16 
Goats are fantastic. Everybody should have two or three. I just want to thank you so much for having me here, and thank you for everything that you do to spread the love of goats and to help all of us who have goats better care for them and love them. It's, I'm just such a fan of yours, and it's just such a pleasure to be here.

Deborah Niemann  30:35 
Oh, thanks. And I love what you guys are doing so much. And we've been talking about doing something on Goatlandia next year. So I am really looking forward to that in 2026.

Deborah Blum  30:45 
Yes, I am as well. Very exciting.

Deborah Niemann  30:47 
And that's it for today's show. If you haven't already done so, be sure to hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit fortheloveofgoats.com, and you can follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/lovegoatspodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now!

Head Shot

Deborah Niemann

Host