Some people wonder why it is that are there goats here as well.
Our goats actually belong to Legend Dairy Farm, a small family dairy that sells goat milk for animals. We provide their herd space, and in exchange, our tigers get goat milk and kefir. These are great for our tigers' digestive health, and frozen goat milk is a wonderful, cool treat on hot summer days.
The goat herd is also a big part of our fire safety program, and we often refer to them as our unofficial fire department, since their contribution to our fire defense is just as important as the things we are doing to improve our ability to attack fires that get too close to us.
Last year, with a lot of volunteer help, we created two new fire control pastures. These are fenced areas where we can concentrate the eating power of goats, cows, and horses to keep fuels to a bare minimum come fire season. As we continue to grow our “fire department”, we will create a third fenced pasture area over the next winter, placing grazing animals on every side of the tiger compound to further protect our cats and the equipment we use to keep them safe and maintain their habitats and heath.
Starving fire of fuel is just one of the many fire protection steps that we have taken this year, with more to come. Keeping our tigers safe from fire is a huge priority here, one that gets more attention as the extreme drought years seem to grow more frequent here in northern California.