The thieves got here in the midst of the evening with wire cutters, snipping via the fence and trampling via a brush of stinging nettle. Their goal? A pen of goats, a few of them pregnant and others that had simply given beginning.
“They took the tamest, nicest goats that may have come as much as them,” mentioned Dan Drake, the proprietor of Drake Household Farms in Ontario. The burglars had completely cased the joint earlier than pulling off their heist on the evening of April 15, after they carted off 12 of his farm’s 500 goats — together with his youngsters’s beloved pet, Nova.
Drake’s goats had been simple marks. Goats can’t do a lot injury with a chunk (they don’t have incisors on their higher jaw), and those on Drake’s farm had their horns burnt to cease them from rising. Missing pure weapons of their very own, his domesticated goats relied on two Nice Pyrenees canines to defend in opposition to hungry predators. However the artful robbers in some way knew that the canines couldn’t attain the a part of the farmstead the place they had been breaking in.
“They took one in every of my favourite goats that I’d by no means promote for even $12,000,” he sobbed over the cellphone. Drake suspects that one goat who was affected by being pregnant toxemia is lengthy useless as a result of she didn’t obtain the drugs she wanted the subsequent morning.
The Drakes filed a report on the Ontario Police Division and are providing a $3,500 reward within the hopes that the goats would possibly nonetheless be discovered. Up to now, although, the efforts have been unavailing.
Some folks have despatched photos of goats wandering of their neighborhood, pondering they’ve discovered the stolen animals. However they aren’t the Drakes’, mentioned Dan’s spouse, Kim, explaining that their animals are nicely stored and clear. “I do know immediately they’re not our goats… they’re not shaggy,” she mentioned.
Nor have the goats turned up at any of the native dairies or at a slaughterhouse, mentioned Det. Michael Williams, who’s been investigating this suspected case of grand larceny.
That is simply the newest chapter within the lengthy uphill battle Drake has confronted since 2010 to maintain his dairy farm within the Inland Empire afloat. Drake cares for about 200 dairy cows a day via his livestock veterinarian apply, and through the years he has poured tens of hundreds of {dollars} from his job into making what he claims is one of the best goat cheese within the nation.
“He’ll let you know he’s hooked on [goats],” mentioned Kim, who works as a nurse practitioner when she isn’t caring for his or her three youngsters. “That’s [Drake’s] calling, I bought sucked into it.” Kim Drake estimates that her husband works round 120 hours every week managing two companies without delay.
Dan Drake, whose pores and skin is sun-kissed pink by the numerous hours he’s spent working outside, will get dreamy-eyed each time he talks about his devotion to goats. He’s a part of a shrinking inhabitants of People who nonetheless name farming a occupation. His household has been goatherders for generations for the reason that Eighteen Eighties in Salt Lake County, Utah, the place their authentic farm nonetheless stands.
He was solely 13 years outdated when he registered his first goat with the American Dairy Goat Assn. — and he was instantly hooked. “Perceive I’m like a cat girl, that’s me, however I’ve goats,” mentioned Drake, who is aware of virtually each single one in every of his 500 goats by title.
Drake’s enterprise is one in every of 42 remaining goat farms licensed by the California Division of Meals and Agriculture to provide dairy merchandise, and the theft final week has put it into an much more financially precarious state.
Their enterprise was lastly within the black after Mendocino Farms partnered with the Drakes to make an entrée referred to as “Save Drake Farms Salad” that paid off all their money owed, however the pandemic reversed their fortunes.
“COVID killed us,” Drake mentioned. “Most of our cheeses bought in high-end eating places, they usually had been all closed for months.”
After COVID, Mendocino Farms ended its partnership with the Drakes to save cash, he mentioned, they usually needed to scramble to discover a new companion, Sweetgreen. Confronted with looming closure, Drake simply couldn’t pull the plug on his ardour venture, though it takes about $600,000 a 12 months in whole to run his farmstead and Sweetgreen makes up solely about $400,000 in purchases.
The Drakes attempt to make up the remainder by promoting cheese at farmers markets and their farm, the place additionally they supply goat petting, excursions with cheese tastings. Drake additionally sells male goats to households to eat, however he doesn’t butcher any of the animals himself.
The important thing to creating nice cheese is straightforward for Drake: Hold your goats glad and clear. “There’s some actually nastytasting goat cheese on this planet,” Drake mentioned whereas giving a tour of the milking station.
Goats, like cows, should be milked twice a day, however Drake mentioned most locations don’t comply with the identical rigorous schedule as his enterprise does. “There’s no cleansing…there’s no checking, you simply get what you get. And that’s why the cheese tastes horrible,” he mentioned.
He spends round $16,000 a month on 50 tons of high-quality alfalfa hay for his livestock. “Once we take a number of additional time and we double our expense and labor … then that comes again to us in a high quality product,” mentioned Drake, who famous that his farm has Licensed Humane standing. Contemplating how a lot labor he places into the farm, typically it isn’t clear whether or not Drake’s working for the goats or in the event that they’re working for him.
However the current setbacks haven’t deterred him from dreaming. “I wish to have a regenerative farm that truly enhances the surroundings, doesn’t take away from it,” he mentioned.
He’ll be shifting quickly to a a lot bigger plot of land in Riverside County, the place he hopes to chop prices by putting in a battery or photo voltaic panel that might assist fight Edison’s summertime surge pricing for electrical energy. And he’s realizing he can faucet into the agriculture tourism business {dollars} by providing extra instructional excursions of the farm.
Drake mentioned he’s confronted many powerful occasions within the enterprise when the rational factor to do would have been to close it down. However he’s by no means had the center to tug the plug.
He and his spouse additionally see the farm as a type of public service. In response to Kim Drake, individuals who go to the farm depart feeling extra deeply linked with nature because the supply of their meals.
In Drake’s petting zoo, households and kids are all around the goats, which wander individual to individual looking for snacks and a spotlight. Jennifer Sleeper, a trauma therapist, simply occurred to be cuddling a new child goat whose mom was one of many dozen taken.
“[This] is the happiest I’ve ever been in a very long time,” mentioned Sleeper because the orphaned child lounged peacefully in her lap and one other sucked her finger, hungry for milk.
Sleeper is a pescatarian, however the Drake Household Farm’s cheese is one she’s going to eat as a result of she sees the moral sourcing that goes into it. “I feel it’s actually good to help locations like this,” mentioned the Venice resident of the farm that’s one in every of solely two goat dairy operations in Southern California, the opposite being in San Luis Obispo County. She hopes to volunteer even when the farmstead strikes farther out in Riverside County.
“The cheese,” she added, “is simply scrumptious.”
