Fellow Goat Breeders Help Girl Rebuild Herd

Richard Minot got the phone call just after midnight. There was a fire in the barn where his daughter raises dairy goats as part of a 4-H program. Some of them may have been hurt.

He immediately awakened 17-year-old Justine, who has been breeding and raising a herd of 20 goats. Only hours later, the family was scheduled to head from their Orange County home to the Ventura County Fair, in hopes of winning a few blue ribbons in the large livestock exhibition, which is open to residents outside the county.

When they arrived at the barn, Justine gaped in terror at the firetrucks, smoke and blackened structure.

“I just started screaming,” she said. “It was horrible.”

Only three of Justine’s goats--two females, Flower and Lilinoi, and one male named Dork--survived last week’s blaze. The trio are still being treated for burns.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do with her,” her dad said.

Eight years of hard work--spending about four hours daily milking and feeding the goats--was gone overnight. Not only was the herd valued at about $5,000, Minot said, the family had established a personal attachment to the animals.

The sort of people who understand such a bond, he said, are not uncommon in Ventura County.

That’s why Minot said he made the two-hour trip with Justine to the fair at Ventura’s Seaside Park last week, despite knowing it would be difficult to watch the competitions Justine would have taken part in.

But the trip provided a happy ending to their ordeal.

Once word traveled about the fire, local exhibitors said they wanted to do something to help. Competitors offered Justine her pick of their champion young female goats.

“It’s a real tragedy what happened, because she was trying to raise a herd and was doing so well,” said Aimee Allred, 15, whose herd of nearly 25 dairy goats is kept at Foster Park in Ventura. She and her grandmother, Karen, let Justine choose two of their animals. The girls have been friends since the Minots started showing at regional county fairs in the early 1990s. “I’m just doing it for Justine.”

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Aimee agreed to give up Monterey Missy, the granddaughter of a permanent champion, which is a goat selected as a champion at three or more fairs. “Hopefully she’ll do well for her,” Aimee said.

Only a handful of young people in local 4-H programs choose to raise dairy goats, because it’s expensive and time-consuming, Minot said. Unlike the 4-H livestock projects destined for market, in which the animals are sold for slaughter each year after fair competition, dairy goats are cared for year after year and the breeding could go on for more than a decade.

“Our goat breeders have gone down, so it’s really important to keep the people who are really into it,” Aimee said.

Phillip Cook, 13, of Lancaster, agreed. He has a herd of about 40 goats and offered Justine one of them, a baby female named Tiny.

“She only had the three left, and it’s not the same when you don’t have goats anymore,” Phillip said. “I have so many, it’s not a big deal. I like all of my goats, but this is for a friend.”

The teenagers said they will prepare their goats and take them to the Los Angeles County Fair in mid-September, so Justine can show them during that 18-day event. Two divisions in Ventura County’s large livestock competition--several breeds of sheep and dairy goats--are open to people of all ages from outside the county. The youth contest, restricted to 4-H groups within the county, is taking place this week, said Susan Niethamer, head clerk of the fair’s livestock department.

“It’s so wonderful. I didn’t know people were going to give me goats,” Justine said. “I guess I didn’t realize how many friends we had until we came here.”

Anne and Dick Pigman, goat breeders who own Wooden Bridge Ranch in Buellton, said they will provide the Minots a buck, or male goat, for breeding. The sheep exhibitors collected cash donations to help with the feed and equipment the family will need to get a new herd started.

The Orange County Fire Authority is investigating the cause of the July 31 fire, which burned about a quarter of an acre and caused roughly $10,000 in damage, said Capt. Paul Hunter. At this point, he said, officials don’t believe it was an act of arson.

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One of the goats killed, Blondie, had just won a junior champion award at the Orange County Fair, which ended July 30, Justine said. Eight others in the herd were ribbon winners.

“She takes such wonderful care of them,” Anne Pigman said. “Everyone cried when we heard.”

But the outpouring of support from the livestock-raising community has renewed the Laguna Hills High School student’s commitment to raising diary goats after what has been a difficult year. In March, the family lost 12 other goats during a mountain lion attack.

“We’re starting with goats that are substantially better than the goats we started with six or seven years ago, so we really have a chance at getting a good herd in much less time,” Minot said.

Right now, Justine is focusing her energy on caring for her three remaining animals. If all goes well, she may be able to enter Lilinoi in the Los Angeles County Fair in the showmanship category, which means Justine would be judged on how she shows the animal rather than on the goat’s overall quality, her dad said.

“Our friends in Orange County have offered help and support, but the people in Ventura could relate a whole lot more to what was going on,” he said. “The goat people are just like a big family.”