I was once walking my dog in San Francisco and noticed something peculiar: a man across the street walking his pet pig. Apparently, having a farm animal as a pet isn’t as uncommon as we might think. For example, Goliath, a baby cow raised in Danville, California went viral in 2015 because thinks he’s a dog. Pretty cute, right?
As someone who’s favorite animal is a cow, I wish I could adopt one from the SPCA just like I adopted my dog, but I know that it’s impossible unless you have a lot of land. I’ve definitely looked up how to adopt smaller farm animals online, like ducks and chickens, but ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be the best idea while living in an urban area. Although the Internet didn’t have much on where Goliath is today, I would imagine that he eventually outgrew his dog bed and required more space to flourish.
In San Francisco, you can technically have a cow as a pet as long as you comply with housing and stable laws. However, having farm animals as pets can be challenging if you do not have the knowledge, experience, and land necessary to care for them properly. If you live in a city, this article says that it might be easier to have smaller farm animals as pets like chickens, ducks, pygmy goats, and Dexter cattle.
Social media has seemingly glorified having farm animals as pets. For example, this article highlights many non-traditional house pets, like pigs and cows, that people treat just like dogs and cats. Recently, on a bovine note, highland cows have plagued my feed on TikTok. A 2024 Newsweek article titled “Miniature Cows, Goats, and Donkeys Surge in Popularity” highlighted the increasing popularity of mini goats as pets, stating:
Mini goats are one of the most popular entry-level mini animals…In the past year, animal breeders have registered roughly 8,330 mini goats with the Miniature Dairy Goat Association, a 73% jump from the 12 months before July 2021, said Angelia Alden, a business operations manager for the North Carolina-based organization.
Sine, 28, launched her own business breeding and selling mini cows in 2020 after reselling a sick mini cow that cost $350 for $5,000. Last year, she sold about 190 calves through her Missouri-based business, Mini Moos LLC. The calves were roughly split between mini and micromini cows that can cost from $2,000 to $30,000.
4 comments:
I enjoyed engaging with your post. I, too, have noticed an increase in the popularity of keeping traditional farm animals as pets. With TikTok being so prevalent in many people’s lives, it seems that just about everyone these days has an animal at home, such as a goat, pig, or cow.
One thing I wanted to mention is the importance of increased awareness of the benefits of certain farm animals. Most people are aware of and nervous about our trash problem in America. Approximately 300 million tons of trash are produced in the United States each year. Moreover, we have a floating garbage island in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas.
Potentially, some farm animals may be the solution to our trash problem. Chickens, specifically, are fantastic bio-recyclers. It is estimated that in a major city, if 2,000 families had six chickens each, the chickens would reduce 500 tons of the waste sent to landfills. In Hawaii and South America, many homes own chickens that they allow to free-graze, reducing the household waste and eliminating insects and other common pests. Hopefully, people will better educate themselves on the potential benefits that raising some farm animals might bring.
Goliath is adorable! I will say, as a borderline obsessed parent to two rescue dogs and someone who is super passionate about pet adoption over buying animals, I get squeamish when people start breeding and buying animals based on trends. It makes me think about the people who got puppies during Covid just to give them up when they returned to in person work. It also reminds me of how Game of Thrones popularized huskies, but now shelters are full of them because people did not appreciate how difficult they are to train and care for. (My husky mix was returned twice before we snagged her!)
Dogs aside, I predict many people who spent a lot of money on a niche mini farm animal will ultimately surrender their pet because they didn’t understand the work involved. Additionally, I think your point about rising farm animal costs is interesting. I wonder to what extent breeding and selling mini farm animals is a distinct kind of business from raising and selling animals farm animals more generally, if there is a distinction at all.
I had no idea that you could technically have a cow as a pet in San Francisco (seems bizarre to me) but your article reminded me of something else. It is relatively well known that many people will leave dogs at the shelter when they outgrow being a puppy, whether because the person is unable to handle a bigger dog or because the person only wanted puppies. Is that an issue with these mini farm animals? It seems much much harder to care for a full size or even small cow, compared to how (relatively) easy a calf probably is. Or, as someone who has known plenty of people to own chickens, I know that it seems much easier when they are a small bird, versus when they are an adult.
This was interesting to read about. As small farm animals become more popular I, as some other have touched on, worry about pet owners' ability to properly care for the animals and ensure they have adequate space. There is a general lack of understanding when it comes to how much attention, enrichment, and space animals need to live happy and healthy lives even with common pets. Hopefully the mini farm animal are well cared for and the trend ends up helping farmers and people who raise livestock.
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