Necessity

Food systems and structures Radical reconciliation Decolonisation and post-growth economies Domestic resilience and creative communities Environmental and human rights

Street Goat

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Street Goat assists local communities in accessing land, providing training on goat husbandry, milking, and on-going support.

The project works like a Community Supported Agriculture model where there are paying members at each site to contribute to rent of land/hay/straw/vet bills additional feed etc.

Our current sites:

Troopers Hill

  • The original milking project – which has been going since 2016 (@ The Farm Allotment) – supports 14 households with fresh raw milk and has 28 milking slots per week
  • The goats rotate around 5 paddocks
  • Members do 2 shifts a week/ as well as workdays once a month/ collecting forage offsite and attending meetings
  • Members of the public can partake in workdays and come on as trainees before becoming a paying member
  • They can also participate in workshops such as tanning/butchery/green woodworking/Cheesemaking in the future – the funds from workshops go back into the project
  • The site is currently being rested and the milkers are pitching in at the Royate site

Begbrook

  • Streetgoat are on Begbrook site as potential land partner with Avon Wildlife Trust, growing from a grazing site to become a milking site in May 2020
  • Currently, there are 4 goats on the site two of whom are being milked
  • Since being on-site there has been extensive work clearing the site of years of rubbish / clearing out barns / securing the site
  • UWE students have also been volunteering on workdays as have a group of film students
  • Lots of interest amongst local volunteers to become milkers
  • Members decided to milk once a day so there will be currently 14 milking slots

Royate Hill

  • Our newest site – having goats on it since August 2020
  • Is part of The Royate Hill Nature Reserve and sited in The Royate Hill Allotments
  • The site takes advantage of the old viaduct that runs through the nature reserve and houses the goats and the milking parlour underneath it
  • There are currently two nannies being milked along with two kids
  • A further hillside on the reserve has been fenced recently so the goats can assist in the control of the brambles and thus help improve the diversity of plant species present
  • We’ve had numerous new trainees start on the site who are quickly learning the ropes of looking after goats in an urban environment

Bridge Farm

  • Originally a conservation grazing site (since 2020) to help manage brambles on a community led housing project
  • Thanks to volunteer efforts to clear a barn, fix the roof and turn it into a milking parlour, now the site has become a milking site
  • 2 Milking goats on site with 15 active milkers who take home fresh milk every night, and some turning it into cheese too
  • The goats have four paddocks of bramble which are grazed in rotation, and are also used for spot clearances in different areas of the farm; such as the old orchard in preparation for Wassail celebrations.

The grazing herd carries out conservational grazing work on disused urban sites and wildlife sites outside the city. Over the past year, there have been about 30 volunteers and 15 student volunteers involved in this part of the project across 5 sites.

The grazing project is headed up by a couple who have been part of the project since it started and have run the herd financially autonomous from Street Goat, money from meat sales helps cover most of the costs.

Grazing sites have included:

Bridge Farm/Parkway/Goblin Combe/Purdown/Brown’s Folly/Wick Golden Valley (Most in conjunction with Avon Wildlife Trust, Bristol, and South Gloucestershire City council.)

streetgoat.co.uk 

@Streetgoatproject

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