Goat Shares

[rabbitpatch]

For those of you who live in states where goat shares are legal, can anyone tell me what a reasonable, fair price is for a share? I have a friend who wants to get some milk from me and the only legal way to do that in TN is for me to sell her a goat share.

Problem is I have no idea what is fair.....I've never bought a goat or cow share and never have checked prices on them. I'm completely clueless.

[DamnearaFarm]

Greg was talking to a guy about this a few weeks ago. He pays five bucks a week and gets a gallon of cow's milk a week.

[sandc]

I have been doing the goat share thing here in Colorado (can't wait to get back to our girls in Arkansas). It cost me $30 for an initial buy in and then $5 a gallon and I can get up to 3 a week as long as I let them know the week before how many I want. Here you have to have paperwork and have the initial share purchase and then you can work out a fee for how many gallons a week. When we move away they will buy our share back for the initial purchase price.

[madness]

The legal folks who have looked into this (Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund maybe), say that you need to have the paperwork set up as if they REALLY own part of the goat and not just exercising a loophole. That means if you are selling a portion of a goat, make it the market value if you were to sell the whole animal.

In other words, we could sell 1/14 of a goat - giving the new owner the right to milk from a single milking a week, and we would charge $350/14 or $25 since we could sell the whole goat $350. If you charge less, say $1 just for "show", it could be proven that you were not doing this properly. At least, that's what I've read.

Once you have the purchase price of the share figured out, then come up with a cost for the boarding fee. Legal raw dairies in my area sell a gallon for anywhere from $10-$18 dollars. Our goats produce over half a gallon a milking, so we would charge $6 a week boarding fee for share which would in turn be a fully topped off half gallon jar.

[CarolT]

Not knowing how these things work, I'm curious as to whether letting a friend "practice milking" is illegal? I'm sure this friend might share produce or some such with the owner of the goat?

[Natural Beauty Farm]

There are documents online already for you to look at that others have used.
Usually it is 1/8 or whatever share of a goat. Each share is 1/8th of cost of goat if it was sold. They purchase however many shares and for that they get 1/8th of 1 does production (averaged in herd) X number of shares if they pay for upkeep, and upkeep is whatever the market will bear. In Boulder it might be $60 a month per share, in Appalachia it might be $20 a month. The amount of milk they get depends on the volume of milk produced, in spring/summer they might get 2 gal a week, in winter it may be a quart. The customers that pay through the whole year get to stay, the ones that drop go to the bottom of the list to get a share the following year. Also something in the contract normally states that they either must maintain their upkeep for a full year or they lose their share buy in, in other words shares are only bought back in the spring, when there is a demand and you can fill it with new customers.

[Natural Beauty Farm]

Originally Posted by CarolT

Not knowing how these things work, I'm curious as to whether letting a friend "practice milking" is illegal? I'm sure this friend might share produce or some such with the owner of the goat?

Since you are not selling to general public, I don't see a problem. Unless you have 30 "practice milkhands" every week lol

[Creamers]

http://yellowgoatfarm.com/Herd_Shares.html

A friend I have runs this successful program over in Ohio - review her prices and so forth to get an idea

[madness]

By the way, I think it was said awhile ago on dairygoatinfo - if you are going to go the route of herdshares in a state that doesn't officially approve of them, they are probably illegal. By making contracts, paperwork, etc, etc, you are PROVING that you are 'selling' milk. If you were to be fined/prosecuted, you've just shot yourself in the foot bad. If you do everything under the table with no paper trail? Then how can they ever prove anything?

I don't know the laws in TN. But I do know in Texas that any transfer of milk without a license is illegal - whether it's transfer for a boarding fee or not. Now, as far as enforcement goes, that's another question. Most states probably have bigger fish to fry than a person selling a few gallons a week.

[topside1]

I sell milk on shares, simple written agreement...$6 per gallon...mighty cheap.

[topside1]

If you want a copy of my agreement just E-mail me at my Monterey address...