Hi Christy, can you tell us how you started “Denver Love Goats”?
Hi! I’m Christy Angerhofer, my family and I own the Denver Love Goats!
Liliana, Marigold and Primrose are our 3 goats who live with us in Park Hill along with our 6 chickens, our Mastiff and 3 kids. We didn’t plan on owning goats or having a goat business but the opportunity presented itself we couldn’t say no. Our middle daughter volunteers at the Urban Farm a phenomenal nonprofit that introduces agricultural and farm animals to city kids. She participates in 4-H there.
Last December an employee had rescued 3 fainting goats and was housing them at the farm, what they didn’t know is that they were all pregnant and one day they showed up to 7 baby goats running around.
All the goats were heathy and doing well except for poor Lily. Her mother had decided not to care for Lily, when this happens the baby needs to be removed from the herd as mom won’t feed them and can show aggression when they try to nurse. I happen to be at the farm one day to pick up my daughter and they said they needed someone to take this sweet two lb baby home and feed it a bottle of $11 goat milk every two hours. I mean, who could say no. I was working a hybrid schedule so we said we’d give it a try. We loaded her up in the car with a bottle and a towel and stared “YouTubing” goat care.
We instantly fell in love. The farm was incredibly helpful and we started to care for her. They informed us if we were going to keep her we needed to get a second goat. My daughter wanted to show her own animals in 4-h so we went on the hunt and found a woman who’s goat had 5 babies, so the mother couldn’t supply enough milk for all of them, so we picked her up at just two weeks old and poppped her in the kennel with Lily.
Now we were raising two tiny goats who needed to be bottle fed in our house in the dead of winter. When we brought Prim to the farm they kindly informed us that she was the Wrong goat for our daughter to show, as she was a rescue goat and lacking the proper registered papers needed for fairs.
That’s where sweet Marigold came in. She is our one non-rescued, registered pure bred Nigerian dwarf show goat. When the goats were little I’d bring them everywhere with me, tucked into my jacket we’d go thrift shopping for baby sweaters that would fit them and people would be so happy to see them.
They made everyone smile and brought immediate serotonin boost. Also because we constantly cuddled them and fed them bottles they loved being around humans and being held, pet and fed. We would often bring them to our favorite coffee shop, Dandylion coffee in N Park Hill and one day the owner proposed a coffee/goat/chicken day. When people asked why, he just responded to “make people happy”. Our first booking with them was incredible, so many people showed up and it was smiles all around.
Denver Love Goats was born! We’ve been bringing our girls to events ever since.
What are some upcoming events we can find you at?
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June 1st: We’ll be the Conflict Center for Peace Day at 12pm. (4140 Tejon Street)
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June 8th: We’ll be at the East Colfax Cultural District Community Field Day at the Mosaic Campus from 10-12pm.
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June 23rd: We’ll be at Quince Coffee for Drag Story Time with LaLa the Drag Queen at 3pm
What are some events people can hire you for?
We come everywhere as long as we have an outdoor space. Coffee with Goats, Goat Happy Hour, birthday parties, photo shoots, weddings, proposals, corporate events, festivals, farmers markets, Drag Story Hour, schools, fundraisers, parades. We even did a Rave once which was super fun!
We generally charge 250 an hour for 3 goats dressed up with treats and cuddles for all. We also take all the pictures for our guests and send them. We can offer chickens and or mini bunnies for 100$ extra. Mostly the cost goes to the maintenance of the goats, our time and transportation of the animals. We’ve worked with all budgets as accessibility is important to us!
Are you from Colorado? Which areas of Colorado do you serve?
Yes I was born and raised in the heart of Denver, my husband was raised in Wheatridge and we now call North Park Hill our home. We’ve been in Park Hill for about 18 years and we chose it for the community (the people), its diversity, and its central location.
What challenges have you faced along your journey?
The 6 months the goats lived inside our house while our chicken coop was being converted to a goat shed were a bit challenging! Baby goats love their bottles and love playing a jumping around. We’d often have goats on our counters eating our fresh fruit. Also, although we love sharing our goats and our kids play a huge role in contributing to the care and share of the animals, our weekends are often packed with goat visits, lacrosse, music lessons and about 1000 other things.
Finally transporting farm animals had been a real challenge. They don’t fit in a kennel, so my husband is constantly building new barricades in our cars to keep them contained while we transport them. So far he’s losing that battle as they just break through and end up on someone’s lap in our mini van.
We also bring our girls pro-bono at least once a month to organizations, schools, assisted living facilities, or anywhere else that might need a pick me up, but not have the means to contribute financially, we want to make sure there is not barriers for people who could benefit from the healing love that farm animals bring! We frequently bring them to @mutualaidmonday for our unhoused neighbors to experience them. We are driven by community and love to give back.
We are also owned by me (a Latina Woman) and are proud to support equity minded organizations.
We also love to educate others about backyard ranching with goats and chickens! We’ll be breading two of our girls and hope to start selling goat milk products next year.
We love our farm animals so much. They’ve totally changed our lives for the better!
How would you describe the personality or “Vibe” of Denver?
We love our Denver Peeps, they’re so friendly and welcoming and when people see a goat in a tutu walking down the street they literally stop their cars to give the gals some love. We’ve so appreciated the laid back and loving reaction people have had to our little urban ranching experience.
Website + Social Media for “Denver Love Goats”?
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at @DenverLoveGoats.
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