Mountain Flower Goat Dairy is a sustainable agricultural project in downtown Boulder, Colorado. We are a demonstration and working goat dairy that brings goats to people and people to goats. In addition to producing goat milk, our goal is to get a lot of work done while offering young people and adults the opportunity to learn the skills that it takes to run an urban farm business. We seek to reconnect people with the source of whole foods, thereby providing them with the tools to improve health and wellness; while simultaneously demonstrating that urban agriculture is an effective land use tool for protecting critical urban open spaces.

Through Mountain Flower’s current experiential education programs, students learn to see themselves not only as consumers, but as important land stewards who are essential to ecological and animal health and wellness. Each student engages in the basics of goat care – feeding alfalfa and grain, providing clean water, cleaning pens and composting waste. We also teach necessary skills for clean food production and each student gets an opportunity to taste fresh milk or try some farmstead cheese.

Connecting “hands to hooves” helps address a root cause of ecological degradation and habitat loss: disinterest. Today’s youth need experiences that establish in them a preference for outdoor activities over the seductive ease of TV and video games. We are seeing that the experience of connecting with farm animals fills a longing in children and ignites in them a desire to engage further in urban agriculture. The unexpected level of interest from young children in our docent program as well as the overwhelming response to our public visiting hours confirm for us the value of these offerings to Boulder’s youth and families.

Mountain Flower Urban Goat Dairy is sustainable agricultural project of the Living GREEN Foundation, a 501(c)(3)