How to Grow a Goat Grazing Business Part 1

In 2004, I opened Rent-A-Ruminant LLC in Western Washington State. I started with a handful of goats, no experience and not a clue how to start and run the business. There were only two of us goat rentals in the State of WA at the time. It was still a fledgling industry and took a while for it to really take hold and take off. Once it did however, I became as busy as I wanted to be and to date I’m working about 30 days a month April through October grossing between twenty and twenty five thousand dollars a month. I operate a herd of either 60 or 120 goats.

Here’s a little about what I’ve been doing since from our ad for the 2015 Intuit Contest to get a commercial during the Super Bowl.

Since its inception Rent-A-Ruminant has been a media magnet. I think it’s because people like the name and I enjoy doing interviews so am interesting on camera. A few outlets that have done stories are The Colbert Report (People destroying America piece/ goats are taking everybody’s jobs) Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, New Yorker Magazine, ABC News Nightline segment, NPR national syndicate. NPR local syndicate, ACRES Magazine, PEMCO Insurance commercial (Goat Renter Guy), Taco Time commercial, Southland the TV series (Used RAR as a character in an episode), every local Seattle area news station and paper. The list goes on. Because of the amount of press I have received, my brand Rent-A-Ruminant has grown into one of the most popular goat rental companies and brands in the USA.

I always envisioned growing my business not by getting more goats and hiring folks to run them but by getting others going in this exciting industry. Over the years I have had an enormous number of people inquire about the business and seeking information to start their own. Because of this I knew that I had a marketable product in a franchise. In 2016 I launched the Rent-a-Ruminant Franchise Company. I thought “what better way to help others start their own goat rental business than through an actual, legitimate franchise”. In doing so, I created the first, and to date ONLY, goat rental franchise IN THE WORLD! Through it we offer a proven model to train, mentor and provide ongoing support in all aspects of the business to franchisee’s throughout the US. There are 14 states in the country that require approval from the state to sell franchises in them. The other states do not require approval. We just received approval in WA and CA two of the most difficult states to receive this from. In 2017 we are launching Rent-a-Ruminant Tennessee and Rent-A-Ruminant Texas. Each franchisee gets a territory so there will be the opportunity to sell multiple franchises in a state and not risk affecting the others business.

Coming up, I’ll share more about the franchise opportunity, some of the kinds of projects I’ve worked on, and stories from the life of a prescribed grazier.

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