Pet Goats on a Cattle Farm: Meet Mr. Bo Jangles
Pet goats on a fifth-generation cattle farm: two Nigerian dwarf goats, a lap goat named Speck and Mr. Bo Jangles, mayor of the barnyard.
Shipley Farms raises beef cattle. The animals everybody asks about are the goats.
The farm keeps a few Nigerian dwarf goats down by the barn. They are pets, and they have personalities the whole family can describe.
Nigerian dwarf goats are often confused with pygmy goats, but they are separate breeds. Ours are Nigerian dwarfs.
Speck, the lap goat
The first was a little goat named Speck, claimed by Gray's niece. Speck liked to jump up into your lap. One day Gray was leaning back in a chair with Speck in his lap, and Speck decided to keep climbing, straight up his chest, then stood there and stared down at him as if he owned him.
Gray says he laughed and laughed:
“It's just the funniest thing to have a goat standing on my chest staring me down.”
Gray Shipley
Word for word, as recorded
It's just the funniest thing to have a goat standing on my chest staring me down.
Goats like to climb on things. Anybody who keeps them learns that quickly, and the next story is what happens when the thing they climb is a fence.
Mr. Bo Jangles, mayor of the barnyard
Asked which animal has a personality everybody at the farm knows about, Gray did not hesitate. It is Mr. Bo Jangles, the other dwarf goat:
“Bo is, I think him is kind of like the mayor of the barnyard down there. He's the smallest creature that we've got down there.”
Gray Shipley
Word for word, as recorded
Bo is I think him is kind of like the mayor of the barnyard down there he's the smallest creature that we've got down there.
Being the smallest does not mean he gets pushed around for long:
“And some of the big guys can kind of push him around a little bit, and, you know, push him out of the way of the food, but he'll give it right back to him.”
Gray Shipley
Word for word, as recorded
And some of the big guys can kind of push him around a little bit and you know push him out of the way of the food but he'll give it right back to him.
And he has a bit of celebrity status, Gray says:
“So he's a real friendly animal, real personable. He can put him on a leash and have him follow you around.”
Gray Shipley
Word for word, as recorded
So he's a real friendly animal real personable he can put him on a leash and have him follow you around.
What pet goats are really like
- They climb. Laps, chairs, people and, given the chance, fences.
- They have opinions. The smallest goat in the barnyard still holds his ground at the feed.
- They can be friendly. A goat like Bo will walk on a leash and follow you around.
- They eat things they should not. One of the goats once took a glove out of Gray's pocket, so empty your pockets first.
- They need company and the basics. Goats are herd animals, so keep at least two, with shelter, fresh water, hay and a fence they cannot climb.
Can you keep a goat as a pet?
Yes, where your area allows it. Whether you can keep one at home depends on your local zoning and any HOA rules, so check those before you bring a goat home.
The cattle are the reason the farm exists. The goats are a big part of why visitors remember it. The farm has been in the Shipley family since 1872, and Shipley Farms Since 1872 tells that longer story.
The easiest way to try beef raised here: one eighth of an animal.
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A roast feeds a table and asks very little of you once it is cooking.
View ProductWritten at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.
Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. He recorded these answers himself, at the farm, in the autumn of 2026. The play button under each quote is that recording, exactly as he said it, and the words under it are a word-for-word transcript. In the written quotes, hesitations are trimmed so they read on the page. Nothing else is added or reworded, except where Gray revised his own words in review.
Reviewed 9 November 2026.
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