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Shanna De Hoogh and her father, Sheldon Weinert, corral the family’s small herd of dairy goats and prepare to lead them to the barn.
Phil, one of the sires of the De Hoogh herd of dairy goats, rises up to greet visitors by placing his hoofs on the fence.
Shanna De Hoogh opens a subscription box containing a variety of Big Red Barn products made with goat milk, including soap shavings intended for use in a small foaming hand soap canister nestled in the box. There are different subscription boxes available, but they always include at least one bar of goat milk soap.
Bars of Big Red Barn soap are made with goat milk and three different oils. Many of Big Red Barn soaps also are scented and include different fragrance oils. The fragrance of a particular soap is indicated on the small cardboard sleeve that envelopes each bar.
Two dairy goat kids meander about their enclosure on the De Hoogh farm near Sheldon. Shanna De Hoogh curates her herd of mature dairy goats by selecting from among the herd’s offspring each year.
Amber Bush, the single part-time employee of Shanna De Hoogh’s small business, Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap, prepares lip balm to be poured into tubes. The mixture, which includes goat milk, must cool and harden before it can be applied.
Shanna De Hoogh and her father, Sheldon Weinert, corral the family’s small herd of dairy goats and prepare to lead them to the barn.
SHELDON—The small herd of dairy goats milling about the horse corral on Shanna De Hoogh’s acreage near Sheldon produces milk with an unlikely purpose: it lends its moisturizing qualities to colorful bars of scented, handmade soap.
“I’ve always been intrigued by dairy,” De Hoogh said. “But I knew we couldn’t keep up with production with cows.”
Milking a cow by hand takes much longer than it takes to milk a goat, and large bovines are more difficult to handle and house.
De Hoogh’s herd of a half-dozen dairy goats includes several Nubians, which have chocolate brown coats, as well as a handful of Saanens, a Swiss breed with a white coat known for heavy milk production and large, alert ears.
Phil, one of the sires of the De Hoogh herd of dairy goats, rises up to greet visitors by placing his hoofs on the fence.
The goats were a 4-H project for several of the De Hooghs’ eight children when they were growing up, but now that the kids are older — 16-23 — the herd’s main role is milk production.
Forty-eight-year-old De Hoogh started her small business, Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap, four years ago, one year after acquiring a herd. The business gets its name from the bright red barn that looms above the horse corral, where the De Hooghs’ six female goats are sometimes employed to take care of weeds.
Next to the corral is a low-lying enclosure full of laying hens, pecking at grubs and grass, and along the west side of the barn, near the corral, is a run for the herd’s two sires, Cody and Phil.
Phil, a large, venerable-looking goat with a white beard, greets visitors by placing his hoofs on the top rung of the fence and stretching out his neck.
“They’re curious,” De Hoogh said, acknowledging that goats come by their reputation for stubbornness honestly. However, they also are playful and inquisitive, and some of them have a relatively docile disposition.
“Those are the ones I choose for the herd,” De Hoogh said, turning to pat one of the young kids, a Saanen, when it walked up and gave her leg a nudge with its soft snout.
She curates the herd from the dairy goats’ offspring, a steady stream of which are required to keep the mother goats in milk production. Those not selected for the herd are sold, replaced by a new batch each spring.
Shanna De Hoogh opens a subscription box containing a variety of Big Red Barn products made with goat milk, including soap shavings intended for use in a small foaming hand soap canister nestled in the box. There are different subscription boxes available, but they always include at least one bar of goat milk soap.
The business’ tag line — “From the barn to the bar!” — reflects the simple movement between barn and kitchen that characterizes De Hoogh’s homegrown operation. Inside the dark barn, there are stalls for the nurslings, bales of hay and milk stands where De Hoogh milks the herd by hand.
“We want customers to know that we’re not using canned or powdered goat milk,” she said, explaining that many goat milk soaps and skin products are made using products from the shelf.
Big Red Barn products, by contrast, are made with milk produced on-site, on a small scale, by well-cared for dairy goats who spend significant time at pasture.
When the goat kids are still nursing, De Hoogh milks the herd just once a day, and the daily yield is about a gallon of milk.
“When they’re weaned, it’s twice a day — morning and night,” she said.
Twice-a-day milking yields two to three gallons of goat milk, most of which ends up in bars of soap or other skin-care products sold by Big Red Barn.
Originally, De Hoogh thought she might make a variety of goat cheeses with the milk, but she soon realized it took a huge quantity of milk to make even a small amount of Chevre, the popular variety of fresh goat milk cheese found in many supermarkets. The family does drink some of the milk produced on the farm, although not all pails of milk are suitable for drinking without pasteurization.
“I know when I’ve got a clean milking,” she said, describing the variety of ways a pail of fresh goat milk might be compromised. An errant hoof might plunge into the pail, or it could be contaminated with dirt or straw. Most of the milk goes into the business.
The business, De Hoogh said, came about by happenstance.
She describes herself as someone who has always been unfussy about skin care.
“I was never real snobby about my skin-care products,” De Hoogh said. “I’m just not that kind of person.”
Bars of Big Red Barn soap are made with goat milk and three different oils. Many of Big Red Barn soaps also are scented and include different fragrance oils. The fragrance of a particular soap is indicated on the small cardboard sleeve that envelopes each bar.
She did not go in for expensive formulas or elaborate skin-care routines. However, when De Hoogh purchased her first dairy herd from a woman living near Sioux City, she went home with two soap samples made with goat milk.
“I decided I’d take it in with me into the shower,” De Hoogh said. “It was a chance to try something new, and I figured, ‘If I break out, I’ll just break out head to toe, and then we’ll know.’”
When she got out of the shower, instead of her skin feeling taut and dry, like it had been soaped and stripped of its oils, it felt soft and well-hydrated.
“I came out of the shower, and I felt like I already had on a light moisturizer, rather than like my skin had shrunk a size, and I needed to run for the lotion,” De Hoogh said. “I thought, ‘If I can notice this, and I don’t have sensitive skin, there are people out there who really need this.’”
That was the catalyst. She developed a recipe and a set of techniques, and eventually she started selling bars of goat milk soap wholesale to area retailers as well as on her website and from her home.
“Anybody is welcome to come out and visit,” De Hoogh said.
Aside from goat milk, which makes up about a quarter of each bar made by Big Red Barn, there are three oils included in their short list of ingredients.
“The olive oil and coconut oil are nourishing oils,” she said. “Palm oil is for stability.”
Rather than a bar that disintegrates in the soap dish, soaps that includes palm oil hold their shape.
De Hoogh does the milking in the barn, where each goat takes turns hopping onto a small milking platform and munching on feed that includes oats and black oil sunflower seeds. As ruminants, the goats spend other times grazing, and a significant component of their diet is made up of grasses and weeds.
De Hoogh said she hopes to purchase a milking machine in the near future, having taxed her hands for years with the rigors of milking.
“My hands need a break,” she said. “I don’t want to get carpal tunnel.”
Two dairy goat kids meander about their enclosure on the De Hoogh farm near Sheldon. Shanna De Hoogh curates her herd of mature dairy goats by selecting from among the herd’s offspring each year.
As taxing as it is, that work gives back to her hands in the form of soap. She keeps a foaming version of her soap, made from soap bar shavings, near her kitchen sink, and she said the inclusion of goat milk leaves her hands feeling soothed and supple, even without lotion.
When the milk comes in from the barn, it ends up in the De Hooghs’ second kitchen, which is adjacent to the family’s living room and serves as the production space for her business.
De Hoogh has one part-time employee, Amber Bush, who is married to the pastor of Trinity Hospers Campus, where the De Hoogh family attends church. A couple of days a week, the two set up with soap-making supplies in an ordinary looking kitchen.
Few specialized tools are required, but De Hoogh did invest in a soap cutter. Some soaps are formed as a loaf with a free-form top, then cut into slices that resemble pound cake once the soap has hardened. Some are created using molds. Along with pots and measuring cups, the counters host soap molds and small plastic tubes for lip balm, another product made with goat milk.
Once De Hoogh perfected her soap-making recipe, she developed a complimentary line of lotions that include goat milk as a primary ingredient. There is a moisturizer suitable for any part of the body and two other proprietary blends — a lotion for the face and a lotion for the feet.
“The foot lotion is actually thinner than most people expect — they expect it to be thick, like a cream,” she said. “It’s thinner because there’s more goat milk in it.”
The lactic acid in the goat milk has exfoliating properties that help slough off dried skin and calluses on the feet rather than simply creating a tight but temporary seal to hold in moisture.
The most inexpensive item in their line of products is the lip balm, which costs $4, and none of the products goes for more than $30. Most of the products include a fragrance oil, although they are available fragrance-free as well.
Signature scents available include mango kumquat, dewy rose, bonfire and almond biscotti. The soaps are colorful, and many have a swirled appearance. The business duo’s most recent creation looks like a wedge of watermelon.
“We’re proud of that one,” De Hoogh said.
Part of the fun of soap making is the artistry involved, but the most important quality of the Big Red Barn product line is the gentle, moisturizing effect on the skin, De Hoogh said.
Along with skin-care products, De Hoogh recently added homemade laundry detergent to her shelves — a powdered variety with goat milk shavings that serve as the lathering agent.
“Partly, it’s a no-waste solution for my business,” she said, explaining that soap shavings and imperfect soaps can be integrated into the powdered product.
“It works especially well for people with sensitive skin,” she said.
The detergent is mild and doesn’t include harsh ingredients.
The business continues to diversify.
There are subscription boxes available through the Big Red Barn website, including a soap-of-the-month option, and anyone interested in learning how to make soap by hand can contact De Hoogh by telephone or on the business’s Facebook page to arrange for a small-group soap-making class.
Amber Bush, the single part-time employee of Shanna De Hoogh’s small business, Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap, prepares lip balm to be poured into tubes. The mixture, which includes goat milk, must cool and harden before it can be applied.
“Even if you’re not going to go into business making soap, it’s fun to see how it’s made,” she said.
De Hoogh has hosted a number of small groups, mostly composed of friends, and along with new knowledge, students also go home with the bars of soap they produced.
An open house at Big Red Barn is planned for 9 a.m.-2 p.m. today (Saturday, June 25), and the lineup of events includes milking and soap-making demonstrations, a hayride, a coffee tasting and an opportunity to pet or “snuggle” goats, including the leggy herd of 13 kids on the farm.
“We want to give people an opportunity to see where the soap comes from,” De Hoogh said. “You can walk out to the barn and see that it comes from right here. I think you can tell the difference.”
Business: Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap
Hours: Irregular business hours; products may be purchased online.
Online: www.brbgoatmilksoap.com or Facebook
ORANGE CITY—The Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Dairy Team will host “Fine-Tuning Your Dairy Goat Management” as a part of its an…
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