‘You’re all goats today:’ Maine farm opens up to human and goat hiking

Each winter, Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, owners of Ten Apple Farm in Gray, Maine, host goat hikes on their 18-acre property.

“When you hear me calling to the goats, I’m talking to everyone,” Ten Apple Farm owner Karl Schatz said before leading about a dozen keen hikers and snowshoers on a 1-mile hike through his property. “You’re all goats today, you’re all part of the herd,” said Schatz.

Turns out, goats are pretty good hiking partners. They don’t protest or complain but are content with foraging, stripping bark from trees and munching on boughs of trees along the trail.

According to Hathaway, the goat hikes started about 10 years ago, a few years after her and Schatz left New York, spent a year traveling around the country living at various goat farms and settled in Gray.

Part of the “Year of the Goat” was spending time in Wyoming, where goats carry gear and bags and go out hiking. They were inspired to implement the same system, sans the gear-carrying, with their goats.

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