Nothing flakey about that at all. Goats and dogs are the two domestic animals that are the closest to humans in personality. Just petting them, milking them, especially feeding them all reduce your blood pressure because it is so calming. How, I don't know, but it is. And there is nothing cuter than a baby goat.

Everyone should reread the part about how hard farmers work and how little material reward they get. There is no occupation that requires more and gives less in the US. Right now the price of milk to the farmer is less than double what it was forty years ago. Is gasoline still under 50 cents a gallon? How about electricity. Is that still less than twice what it was in the 70's? Wages? Land? Equipment? Anything? When you hear someone moaning about factory farming, ask if they want to pay what food would cost if it rose at the same rate as the cost of production. Farmers have to run like crazy just to stand still.

Excellent post- you covered everything I was thinking of. I don't have goats, but I grew up with them, and vividly recall the de-horning (I remember holding one baby that had just been de-horned, and it bleated anew as it heard its' twin being de-horned), and the slaughter of male goats (I was never present for that, but my siblings were there, and it sounded like a very silence of the lambs type situation, complete with my sister trying to run off with one of the goats to save it from death). Brutal is about the right word for it. If you want to harvest an animal's milk, you're going to have to deal with that brutality. Is it wrong? I don't think so. It is difficult- particularly, I think, as baby goats are about the most endearing thing on the planet. Goats in general are rivaled in the domestic animal kingdom only by cats in terms of personality- which makes them all the harder to deal with as livestock.

DurianJoe- I never saw a goat eat tin cans (or anyone's homework), but we did have a goat who loved banannas and leftover spaghetti. She also once bit my toddler brother for licking her salt block- showed him good.

DurianJoe is, as he says, entirely accurate when he refers to it as an “early and brutal death”. I saw that comment as pointed – necessarily so – but not snarky. I responded to it because I do think it needs to be discussed in these sorts of pastoral rhapsody articles. It’s all well and good to wax poetic about the joys of raising goats but it’s not an unalloyed joy and there are some very brutal facts to contend with.

To wit:

If you have dairy goats, you must breed them to get milk. In spring, each doe will give you one to four kids. You will likely have more kids than you can sell. Male kids are pretty much valueless; you’re lucky to give them away. You can either slaughter the surplus or you can have an ever growing herd that will quickly bankrupt you feeding them.

I had to slaughter one kid this spring because she had a congenital neurological disorder and never learned to walk. She was a runt and if we’d known she wouldn’t get any better we’d have slaughtered her at birth.

The second kid to be slaughtered couldn’t learn to nurse properly. Wouldn’t suckle and took ten minutes of fighting just to get him to choke down some milk.

All kids must be dehorned, which means taking a heated iron and burning the horn buds when they’re three to four days old. It’s not a fun experience for anyone and the kids scream like banshees. But only a fool would have goats with horns, and many a fool has been taken to the ER. Or had their goats gored and/or killed, maimed, blinded.

As for means of slaughter, I can’t imagine using a knife, but I know it’s required for halal and kosher. That’s strictly for ‘cleanliness’ according to religious belief, and has nothing to do with efficacy or humaneness. A bullet at the base of the skull is instantaneous and as close to painless as it gets. If you can’t bring yourself to do this you can send the goat to a butcher or slaughterhouse. But that means scaring hell out of the goat continuously for the last few hours of its life. For me, the choice is clear: I have to take the responsibility to do it right and as fast as possible.

So yeah, goats are everything Mr. Kessler says, and more. And the ‘more’ that I’ve detailed is brutal and there’s no point in euphemizing it or candy-coating it. Brutal, and bloody sometimes.

You've made a number of mistaken assumptions about me that I'd like to correct:

While I have, over time, come to admire and respect your posts, your quite snarky view of non-vegetarians is offputting.

First off, thank you for the compliment.

In life, as online (most of the time online), I treat nonvegetarians with respect, given that I always try to treat people as I would like them to treat me. The majority of my friends are nonvegetarians, and a few of my closest friends are even hunters. Once in a while I snark at non-vegetarians online, but usually in response to their nasty anti-vegetarian comments. And in general, who among us has not gotten snarky online now and then?

(Do I get snarky with the trolls here at Salon? Yes. Do I call people like Sarah Palin names? Yes. I'm no saint. But then, I try to confine my nasty comments to truly nasty people).

I suspect you called me "snarky" because I wrote the words, "an early and brutal death in the slaughterhouse." That was not snark. Goats and other animals killed for food do endure early and brutal deaths. They are killed usually at a young age or in their prime. That's the "early" part. They are usually killed by having their throats slits, sometimes first with a stunning blow/bolt to the head, sometimes not, but always their lives are taken in a violent manner. That is the "brutal" part. What I wrote was factually correct.

You demonstrate all the signs of 'true believer' with both the positive and negative aspects of such a view. Humans are omnivores. You may choose to be an herbivore, but it is not intrinsically superior or more noble than other choices.

I do not think of myself as a "true believer." I think of myself as strongly dedicated to the cause of animal advocacy (I have never liked the phrase, "animal rights," but the name has stuck), no less so than my dedication to human rights and other causes that I believe are worth defending and promoting.

I have never suggested that humans are not omnivores. I have always maintained that choosing to be an herbivore is just that -- a choice. I do believe that in general, being a vegetarian or vegan is healthier than not, but including small amounts of animal products won't hurt anyone.

I admit to considering vegetarianism the more noble and ethical course for people, just as I consider honesty and kindness and rejection of bigotry and the protection of our environment to be the more noble and better ways to live. Not everyone believes all or even any of those things, but I do. That's why I speak out for animals and ask that people consider not eating them, as well as for other issues having to do, in my opinion, with the oppression of the weak by the strong.

Also, you seem to believe that all animal products are produced in horrible factory farms. While much of it is, not all of it is.

I have no idea why you would think that of me. I have always known, since becoming involved in animal advocacy back in 1985, that animals are raised under conditions ranging from small and humane (as with Mr. Kessler) to nightmarish, as with factory farms. The farmers' markets I have gone to for years always have people selling meat raised from small, humane farms; I've walked past their stalls for years now. On this point, you are incorrect.

I eat meat only from farms and ranches that are all organic, do not use grain for feed and where I can visit and see the entire operation including the slaughtering. These places are not factory farms.

I wish all people who ate meat were like you or, in the alternative, got their meat from ethical hunting.

I firmly believe that it is factory farming, more than any other issue, which provides the urgency and commitment of people involved in animal advocacy.

Finally, being a vegetarian is almost impossible if one is deathly allergic to beans as I am. 20 years ago, at the urging of my wife, I became a vegetarian. All I got was sick - to the point where my doctor, a vegan, ordered me to begin eating modest amounts of meat again. I got healthy again and remain so today.

I'm sorry you were unable to stay vegetarian. I don't doubt your word, but I'd like to think that there is some way for you to be a healthy vegetarian. However, you obviously must do what you think is best for yourself.

You might want to revisit your approach.

I think that for the most part I'm pretty measured, particularly in real life. On the internet, it is easy to get sarcastic, and I try not to do it (at least, I try not to do it to people like yourself who are polite and thoughtful. Trolls are a different story). I can tell you, though, that there has never, ever been a successful movement for political and social change that did not involve activists for those movements making people mad. It is unavoidable, because these causes always involve deeply held beliefs on both sides.

What I reject is violence as a means to achieve ends. It is not my place to force anyone to think or live like me. I have been at demonstrations where a number of us have restrained our more obnoxious members (often young adults -- that's just the way they are), and I won't permit any violence if I see it. Unfortunately, most of the violence I've encountered has been directed at us, but that too comes with the territory.