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Community Corner

Local Goat Rescue Has Big Dreams for Animals

That is after they deal with impending foreclosure and lack of resources to feed the animals

Everybody loves goats.

At least that’s what Nancy Brotman and Ken Zamvil, founders of Goat Rescue in Penngrove, think. Never mind that a visit to their four acre property in Penngrove requires knee high rubber boots, newspapers for your floorboards, and a thick bag for said boots after sinking squishy ankle deep in a rainy mess of goat manure and urine. Everybody loves goats, right? 

“Well maybe our neighbors don’t love goats. I understand when they say this is the wrong place for it,” said Nancy Brotman. “But so many goats need our help.” 

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In 2007, the couple bought a goat they named BubbBa as an around-the-house, eco-friendly, weed eater. BubbBa did a great job, but they soon began to suspect that their goat was lonely. 

“So we bought three more goats, RammBo, BammBamm and Bonn Bonn,” Brotman said. 

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Walking around their property, which includes extensive open greenbelts in front of their home, it becomes apparent that the goats have taught Brotman and Zamvil, a former Casa High School science teacher, that loving them is a lifestyle. When word got around in farm circles that there was someone willing to take and re-home goats, folks who couldn’t keep their goats, because they were losing their homes to foreclosure or just downsizing, beat a path to their door. 

Of course, as a new nonprofit, money is always short. Especially needed are funds to neuter the male goats, which are sequestered in their own battered barnyard. An oft-repaired fence hasn’t stopped the youngest, smallest male from sneaking out and impregnating several females. 

It's obvious Brotman and Zamvil are genuinely charmed by every naughty, destructive and silly thing each and every goat does. If there were ever two people seemingly hard-wired to love all breeds of goats, it is they. Goats have so much energy they make beavers look lazy; they make bees look bored. And bless their bleating, jumping hearts, goats have no “off” button. But what would make many others run for the hills, makes the owners of Goat Rescue of Sonoma County just laugh. 

Despite their own financial and personal challenges, which includes a possible pending foreclosure on their home and rising prices of feed, the couple have big dreams that will require support from the community. They need a small army of volunteers to turn controlled chaos into calm. And they’d like to see people who love goats but can’t own one to support a kid, or two. 

“For $13.50, the price of a bale of alfalfa, you can support one goat for one month. Larsen’s Feed Store in Cotati accepts donations for us. So does Cotati large Animal Hospital. They’ve both been wonderful; very supportive of our rescue mission,” said Brotman. 

They also want their docile goats to become therapy animals, working in convalescent hospitals, with chemo patients and the developmentally disabled. That is, if their bleating doesn't drive them mad first.

If you love goats and would like to volunteer, visit, sponsor or adopt a goat, contact Goat Rescue of Sonoma County at 707-779-9857. And if you decide to visit the Penngrove property, don’t go on a rainy day, don't forget your rubber boots.

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