Give us our goats
Tom Hasslinger | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 12 years, 6 months AGO
<p>SHAWN GUST/Press Mary Petersen kisses one of her three dwarf goats Monday as her husband Nathan and daughter Lily look on. The Petersens, who live downtown, are hoping that the Coeur d'Alene City Council will consider amending ordinances to allow goats.</p>
<p>SHAWN GUST/Press Lily Petersen, nearly two-years-old, plays in the pen with the family's three goats.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Coeur d'Alene's animal ordinance got Mary Petersen's goat.
Specifically, that the rule - which was reworked in 2010 amid some clucking controversy - doesn't allow residents to own goats inside city limits.
What the tin can did you say?
Turns out not even dwarf goats, three of which the Petersens own, are allowed.
"They're smaller than a lab," said Mary, who grows fruits and vegetables, raises chickens for eggs and keeps the goat for homemade milk and cheeses in the back of her A Street home in Coeur d'Alene, "They're 40 pounds each!"
Self-sufficiency is becoming all the rage these days.
That fact came to light in 2010 after Coeur d'Alene put a 3-chicken cap on the number of chickens a city-dweller could own. Previously, it had been an unlimited amount, but the city put the arbitrary cap on as it reworked its animal ordinances at the time. After it did, urban garden growers came out of the coop to protest the change because they used dozens of their own chickens for eggs, and the city quickly scrapped the 3-chicken limit.
The Petersens want dwarf goats allowed, too.
Besides producing milk and cheese, the family uses the goats' waste for the garden's fertilization. The goal is to provide for themselves in a healthy, eco-friendly way.
"I'm a stay at home mom and I want to show our daughter our relationship with food in a tangible way," Mary said. "It's a lost art. We're losing family farms at an alarming rate."
The city's legal department said it was contacted about allowing goats, and that its animal control unit would be looking into any possible problems with having them included in allowable city pets. The topic will come up at the May 21 General Service Committee meeting. It could go to the City Council the following week to consider adopting. The Petersens said they hadn't known their three dwarf goats - named Serphine, Shefa and Cherb and different than pigmy goats - weren't allowed until a code officer knocked on their door to tell them.
Each can produce a half to a full gallon of milk a day.
"They're very low key," said Mary. "They're very loving too."