Happy Goat Lucky Ewe Fiber Farm
Bridget Kavanagh-Patrick employs a number of sustainable farming practices at her Happy Goat Lucky Ewe Fiber Farm, where she tends Merino sheep, Angora goats, and natural dye plants.
Happy Goat Lucky Ewe Fiber Farm
Established: 1987
Owners: Bridget Kavanagh-Patrick
Location: 2672 Dobie Rd, Mason, MI 48854
Distance: approximately 77 miles from Detroit
Website: www.michiganmerinos.com
Tell us about you and your farm.
Happy Goat Lucky Ewe Fiber Farm is located in Mason, Michigan. We are home to 50+ Merino sheep, as well as a small herd of Angora goats, which supply us with the eco-friendly fiber in our home-grown products.
How long have you been farming and what got you started?
I was a wrangler in Montana when I was in college. I went to Michigan State and spent my summers out west. I married after college and we started a family knowing we had to live in the country. As the children grew we started taking in “sad cases” (bottle lambs, chickens with bad legs, abandoned rabbits, etc) and suddenly we had a farm. My fiber experience started when a friend had a herd of goats she could no longer care for. I said, “sure, I’ll take them off your hands.” They arrived at the farm in 10-inch curls - they were angora goats. I’d never seen anything like them before! Thus began my love affair with fiber.
I joined the Spinners Flock out of Chelsea, Michigan. It’s an awesome group of farmers and hand spinners who mentored me. I learned the business side of fiber farming. They have sales twice a year (everyone in the midwest should go), where the cafeteria tables at Beach Middle School are filled almost to the ceiling (my Irish gift of gab allows the exaggeration) with spinners roving. It’s like being a kid in a candy shop. The hair on the back of your neck will stand up the first time you attend one of their sales.
How has your business evolved?
Over the years I honed my skills as a salesperson and have participated in festivals selling everything from raw wool to spinners roving to yarn, both handspun and mill spun. My dream though has always been to have a self-sustaining farm where I produce breeding stock and the majority of my clients (buyers of my sheep) add their wool to a cooperative. Then we could afford to sell the products at a decent price because pooling the wool brings down the cost of processing.
Fast forward to my retirement from the State of Michigan in 2015 (I was the bovine Tuberculosis eradication Coordinator) and my formally becoming a business/farm. I applied for a loan from USDA Farm Services Agency and in 2017 received enough to jump-start my merino wool farm business. With two girlfriends I traveled in a semi-trailer to the middle of Missouri to pick up my dream flock: 50 merino ewes and three studs from Genopallete farms. They have Australian genetics and produce super-fine, low micron wool. I brought the Missouri flock back to Michigan because I kept running into breeding stock in Michigan that were all related. We needed new blood.
What are some of the products the fiber from your farm has been used for and how do you reach customers?
With some fine-fiber grower (Alpaca and merino) friends, we started the Michigan Fiber Cooperative and started producing yarn for shops in Michigan. Every year we come up with a mixture for selling products from our farms. Four years ago it was yarn and two years ago it was socks. Next year we are thinking hats... in the meantime, I have my own wool processed.
So today, I sell starter flocks and wool. The majority of the 400 pounds of fiber produced every year is sold before it’s sheared. I keep 100 pounds to process into yarn, socks, hats, and mittens. These items are sold online, from the farm wool shop (a converted chicken coop) and at the Detroit Eastern Market.
Tell us about the sustainable practices you implement on your farm.
Our farm is home to a pollinator sanctuary. In the spring of 2018, we prepped our soil and planted 5.8 acres of wildflowers and seed grasses for pollinators. The buffer strips of flowers surround the pastures. We did this mostly for the fact that monoculture farming is great for pollinators for two weeks when the crops are flowering, but where do bees, dragonflies, butterflies, and hummingbirds find food after the crops have been pollinated? They need to eat, and we have the land to feed them. We have always had a garden for our farm visitors, the buffer strips were a natural extension.
We also have dye plants that grow around the farm that are harvested each year by natural dyers. They include goldenrod, pokeweed, dandelion, yarrow, sumac and walnut. Make an appointment for the appropriate time of year to gather your dye plants.
Finally, the crux of our farm management is earth friendly. We used the sheep and goats to clear land, we plant for rotational grazing (it mimics natural migration so that the soil and plants have a chance to recover), and we use composted manure (from winter feeding) as fertilizer. It’s as close to nature as we can get without letting the livestock loose.
The result is rain-softened wool with happy creatures producing it. The improvements to the farm are paid for by the sheep, via wool product sales. Thus, I’m a happy shepherdess!